It’s taken four months, but I’m finally finishing the book design for “Defying Extinction”, a survey of regional preservation projects all over the world, funded by the Global Environmental Facility. The book highlights many regions where species preservation becomes part of a larger strategy to protect regional environments. The species are the focal point for each project.

We were faced with a daunting task in locating images of some extremely rare animals. The publisher, Earth in Focus Editions, is an imprint of the International League of Conservation Photographers. The book would not have been possible without iLCP support and access to their phenomenal photographers. Even so, some species such as the Uluguru Bush Shrike of Tanzania, have never been photographed (we used an illustration).

In the spreads shown here, Vincent Munier photographed the wild reindeer (licensed by Wild Wonders of Europe); Igor Shpilenok, photographed the brown bear in Kamchatka, Russia; Tim Laman, Luciano Candisani, and Cristina Mitttermeier photographed the Galapagos giant tortoise (from left to right).

Many people worked hard on realizing this book project but a few were invaluable to me personally: Abbie Williams, publisher of EIFE, maintained the vision. Jerry Dodrill worked with a wide range of photo sources to ensure color balance and resolution were exact; Nicole Parizeau copy-edited the text; Michelle Mercer provided InDesign expertise and last minute assistance as time ran short to send this off to Legend Color in China. Thanks team!

The Impossible Project has saved the day for Polaroid lovers. They have just introduced a newly manufactured black and white Polaroid film for the SX70 camera (I’m going to have to bug my Dad to look in the garage, because I think he has an SX70 in a cabinet out there). Soon, The Impossible Project will have a new color film, and they have good stock of surviving 600 film right now.

What a cool endeavor, The Impossible Project. Dutch scientists took a ten-year lease on an old Polaroid factory and proceeded to reinvent the unique Polaroid photography process. As the world becomes digital, TIP is valiantly preserving the analog.

Here is a mini gallery of favorite polaroids; Ships restaurant in LA, demonstrates the rich natural color the film was capable of; a thousand-year-old egg that was a chinese new year gift from a student; a birthday card, based around my son’s arm cast, which we had just painted. © stefangutermuth 2010.

(The first poster has such an inflamatory title, that I had to treat it as a surrealist piece, rather than address the literal meaning. The second poster derives its meaning from the Greek tragedy, Elektra, Sophocle’s portrayal of lustful revenge).

Every business needs an identity, especially nowadays. I interpret what my clients need. There is a lot of intuition in that part of the process. These are 10 favorites from the last couple years.

Here a SimpleViewer Flash gallery should be displayed. Click here to open the post in your browser to see the gallery.

I’m taking a new direction with my collage work. As a jeweler utilizes beautiful antique beads to make new necklaces, I have been collecting some rare ephemera to use in collage paintings. I found the old McGuffey’s reader at the Mountain Man festival in Santa Fe. Tattered and worn, with many torn pages, the book is not valuable on its own. As collage material, it is priceless.

Boomerang Gallery is at 46 Kentucky Street in Petaluma. 707-773-3222.

Reno, is McAbee’s witty, funky and totally brilliant tiny film geared toward smartphone viewing. (Sundance provided support for a number of artists to create tiny film shorts, which are all available through the link)

Here is a description of Reno from McAbee’s website: “To create a “mobile film” McAbee chose three styles that people were already used to seeing on small screens: still images from digital cameras, bodega security monitors and video loops. The subject for the film was a singing cowboy bragging about his travels through Nevada on a Honda 50 to a store security camera. The Cowboy (McAbee) performed a dance that was captured from four different angles and then edited together as one dance performed by four characters.”

Watch Reno.

Many of my favorite things have come out of this store, from a stainless steel desk, to a 1930’s school room wall map of California. Bill has sold me old prison mugshots from Alcatraz and a random old photo that looks like my former North Beach friend, Nini McCabe, shooting a rifle. Aria is never dull and often fabulous, a curio shop for the visually inclined, where browsing is always welcome. Bill’s struggle to make order out of his eccentric inventory, is definitely performance art.