This week I feel so honored to have Lisa Congdon share five of her favorite books. Lisa is a self taught mixed media artist and illustrator living and working in San Francisco. And if you haven’t seen or heard of Lisa’s beautiful paintings and collages from her features in magazines, posts about her on design blogs or interviews like this one, it’s about time. (I recently became a proud owner of one of Lisa’s paintings which I love.) She says she is obsessed with collecting books and zines that represent the artistic genius of regular (and some not-so-regular) people, past and present. Someday Lisa would like to make a book. I can’t wait for that day. You can see more of Lisa’s own work on her site here and her blog here. Now for some of her favorites…

I discovered I Was Just Leaving this past April when I ducked into a small Williamsburg, Brooklyn bookstore to escape the cold and rain. In fact, it was then that I discovered Richard Colman’s work. Part darkness, part color, part grotesque, part magical, the work of Los Angeles based Richard Colman is mesmerizing. I was lucky to see his work in person this past weekend at a local gallery. It’s even more amazing in person. I Was Just Leaving is a brilliant collection of Colman’s work, mostly his extremely detailed, meticulous drawings and paintings, coupled with informal ink sketches and photos of the genius Colman and his friends. The book also includes an introduction by Camille Rose Garcia and a short biography of Colman, who, in his early thirties has taken the art world by storm.

© Julia Rothman 2007