Larry Frank

Larry Frank is an important poet. He follows the American tradition of plain speech, independence, shared intimacy. Frank breaks new ground with his immediate vibrancy, blending a charged language, emotion, and modern insight with huge energy. Both the bitter and sweet, the odd and standard lie down comfortably to create a cornucopia of words and images In fact, there is nothing that escapes Mr. Frank's wit, focus and curiosity. He has sifted through the storehouse of his memories and experiences to create a fine distillation of themes regarding nature, love, war, and human interaction. In all, these poems are for readers who are excited by poetry as open as buck-shot spread.LARRY FRANK was born in Los Angeles, California and graduated from the University of California at Berkley in English literature and philosophy. He has written, directed, and produced twelve educational films as well as a fictional feature that won an Edinburgh Film Festival Award. Since locating in northern New Mexico forty years ago, Mr. Frank has studied North American Indian cultures and native Spanish Colonial art, His book on New Mexico Santos, THE NEW KINGDOM OF THE SAINTS, was published in 1993. He has lectured on Santos at Stanford University, the Roswell Museum, and the University of New Mexico. Author of two definitive books on Indian subjects, HISTORIC POTTERY OF THE PUEBLO INDIANS and INDIAN SILVER JEWELRY OF THE SOUTHWEST, Frank also wrote a book of short stories, TRAINS STOPS, published by Sunstone Press. In 2002, the New Mexico Historical Society awarded Larry Frank the Ralph Emerson Twitchell Award for a three-volume book, LAND SO REMOTE. He is currently working as co-curator with the Albuquerque Museum on a major exhibit of classic Hispanic Rio Grande blankets to be held at the museum in 2006. Married to well-known artist, Alyce Frank, they have three grown children.

Destined to be an art mogul, Avery Judson serves as an apprentice to an antique shop owner and leaves home to seek his fortune as an art dealer extraordinaire. Soon he stumbles upon a remarkable collection which projects him into an international field of obsessed dealers, collectors, and museum operatives who fiercely compete for art treasures worldwide. Then, in the wake of the collapse of major colonial powers and the emergence of new and independent nations in the 1950s, Avery is exposed to the aggressive adventurers relentlessly searching across international boundaries for masterpieces unearthed by the ensuing political upheavals.In the midst of this, he finds a fragment of an ivory mask and seeks to unite the piece with the original, which leads him into conflict, machinations, suspense, and unexpected romance. As Avery unravels the shrouded affairs surrounding each step he takes, he encounters a formidable array of passionate characters: an iron-willed and adversarial industrialist and his brilliant, co-dependent wife; a mysterious woman internationally involved in art intrigues; and a woman whose unique wisdom changes his life.

This title contains 3 books and a slipcase. This three volume set is the most comprehensive visual document ever published of Spanish colonial and frontier artefacts of New Mexico.

Dedicated to the many people of New Mexico who created a rich and fascinating culture in a harsh land, A Land So Remote: Wooden Artifacts of Frontier New Mexico, 1708-1900s salutes the importance of these vital and pragmatic wooden objects. That the people who made them survived and thrived is a testament to their constancy and success. For over twelve thousand years, the indigenous people of the Southwest have fashioned tools, weapons, religious artifacts, furniture, toys, architectural details, and domestic utensils from wood. With the coming of the Spanish, new tools, technologies, and materials forever altered the indigenous inhabitants' traditional way of life. New Mexican wooden artifacts beautifully express the ingenuity and adaptability of this regional mestizo society. This volume is illustrated with hundreds of color photographs of works from eight museums and nine private collections.

This splendidly illustrated book celebrates the historic silver and turquoise jewelry of the Navajo and Pueblo Indians. It presents for the first time over 300 superb objects that are usually hidden from view in museum storerooms and private collections across the United States. Larry Frank discusses the history of this jewelry from 1868, when the Navajos were restored to their homeland, to 1930, when tourist demand and mass production ended the innovative first phase of the craft. He explores early design sources in contemporary Spanish, Mexican, and Plains Indian work; describes Navajo tools and techniques (often used under conditions of extreme hardship); traces the cultural development of jewelry-making from a past-time to an esteemed profession; and notes the Pueblo Indians' contribution - the sophisticated use of turquoise. Of interest to specialists will be his reevaluation of the Plains Indian contribution and his dating sequence, based on close examination of the style and technique of hundreds of objects. Indian Silver Jewelry contains 253 close-up photographs - 52 of them in color - of conchas, necklaces, bracelets, rings, hair ornaments, bridles, and other pieces, as well as rare photographs of Indians wearing jewelry. The illustrations are grouped by collection - The Smithsonian Institution, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of New Mexico, the Heard Museum, the Wheelwright Museum, the Millicent Rogers Museum, the Lynn D. Trusdell Collection, and assorted private collections. The detailed captions invite the reader to look, compare, and discover for himself the extraordinary beauty and vitality of Southwest Indian silver jewelry.

Working without the use of the potter's wheel, the Pueblo Indians in the American Southwest created beautiful ceramic ware for both utilitarian and ceremonial use. A classic in the field, this book is the first comprehensive account of historic Pueblo pottery, and results from years of study by Larry Frank, an authority on this and other North American Art Forms, and lengthy technical research by Francis Harlow, an internationally known scientist. Illustrating the text are dozens of superb photographs by Bernard Lopez. With nearly two hundred examples, the authors appraise the aesthetic value of Pueblo pottery as rivaling that of any ware made by Neolithic societies, whether in America, Europe, the East of Africa. This book captures that beauty and informs the reader.