Hyparxic Dialogues
Pablo Mandel
What happens when we see a picture or an image? – everyday, or frozen in a photograph. Many times we take it for granted. Or maybe we treat it as a precious piece of art. The choice is ours. But, it is a choice.
This book emerged out of a sequence of dialogues exploring the relationship between the observer and the observed. When we look at an image, a whole series of thoughts and emotions are provoked; social, psychological, spiritual. Through a set of iconic photos by the artist and photographer Pablo Mandel, the viewer is invited to enter into the pictures and explore where they take them. In order to facilitate this journey, we match photos with words, which are aimed at opening up new insights and levels of perception. This is an interactive book which deepens our interpretation of the world that surround us.
The Author
Pablo Mandel is an Argentine-Canadian graphic designer. For more than two decades, he has built a career designing books on architecture, working with renowned architects, universities, musicians, and artists worldwide. His book designs have been published internationally, and he has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects’ National Merit Award 2011 for Grounded and for YUL-MTL Moving Landscapes (2016) and the Bookbuilders West’s Certificate of Excellence (image-driven trade books, 2009, 2010, 2011). He is the co-editor and designer of two books with renowned landscape architect Laurie Olin: France Sketchbooks (2021) and In Italy (2023). He lectures and teaches design at universities and design schools worldwide. Pablo is also a musician, and has performed internationally with acoustic guitar ensembles.
Sales: Pablo Mandel
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Guitar Craft: A Brief Introductory Guide to Practice
Michael Grenfell
This Guide is an Introduction to the Practice of Guitar Craft, as experienced by one of its exponents from the late 1990s. It covers details of its guiding principles and the activities that made up life in a European Guitar Craft house at that time. Such activities involve guitar practice, daily routine – kitchen, cleaning, etc. – as well as personal ‘inner work’ through Themes and other exercises.
Pomera Press are happy to make this book available now to a larger public after the limited 2021 Deluxe edition sold out. We are also offering this new hard copy in both English and Spanish.
Chapters and sections include: Concepts and Principles, Basic and Intermediate Practice, ‘Levels’, ‘the Sitting/ Exercise of Doing Nothing’, Guitar Work (Tuning, Guitar exercises, the Primaries and Secondaries, Scales, Repertoire, the Guitar Circle, Performance), Inner work (Themes, Divided Attention, Time Off, House, Kitchen Craft, Extended Morning Exercises), Calisthenics for Left and Right Hands, and GC Aphorisms
The Author
Michael Grenfell is a writer, musician and academic teacher-researcher. He has held Chair positions at universities in Scotland, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and the University of Southampton, UK where he is now Emeritus Professor. His background is in French Studies and his academic career also involved extensive research and publications on language, education and linguistics, as well as a close association with the French social philosopher Pierre Bourdieu. Author of some 25 books including on contemporary music – folk, rock and Global. He was committee member of the William Blake Society of St James in London in the 1980s and 90s when he was their Press and Publicity Officer. He also edited the Blake Journal. His special focus has been on Blake and Gnosticism. He is the author of some 25 books.
Sales: Pablo Mandel
pomera.argentina@gmail.com
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William Blake: Gnosticism and Gnosis
Michael Grenfell
William Blake (1757 – 1827) is known as a legendary poet, artist, and engraver; one who fashioned for himself a unique artistic style set within an English Romantic tradition. Yet, he was also a prophet; one who shared his vision for humankind – what he termed the ‘divine humanity’ – in a series of ecstatic and illuminating texts and images. As a child, he saw angels in the trees on Peckham Rye, and later experienced the Kings and Queens of England processing up and down in Westminster Abbey, London. Such continued for the rest of his life, and were expressed in his poetry and art. But, Blake was also politically attuned, and fought against what he called ‘spiritual wickedness in high places’.
There are many discussions of Blake’s works, and in many languages: political, literary, aesthetic, psychological, gender based. This extended essay, generously illustrated with a series of related images, focuses on the ‘spiritual’ in Blake and his affinities to Gnosis and Gnosticism. It traces Blake’s philosophy of life and vision back to early Christian heretics and beyond, connects it with renaissance alchemy, and modern esoteric traditions.
At the centre of his work is an exploration of creativity, imagination and what it is (and how) ‘to see the world in a grain of sand’. Any engagement with Blake’s images and texts is itself a transformative process. This book addresses the nature of that transformation.
Sales: Pablo Mandel
pomera.argentina@gmail.com
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40 days to change the world – but we begin with ourselves!
Sandra Bain Cushman
This new release from Pomera Press is built around 40 short readings, which may be used as points of instruction, meditation and invitation. What is set out across 40 texts is no less than a synthesis of key areas of world philosophy of the mind, body and – their relationship – the principles that guide them.
At the core is a lifetime’s experience of one teacher and student of the Alexander Technique. The emphasis is on action! However, beyond the basics of moving and breathing, there are a series of reflections to help us in orientating our own understandings and worldview. For some this will be an induction into a new lifestyle approach. For others it will be support and reassurance. For still others, a point of rest. And all in just about 100 pages! A ‘little’ book – a treasure trove – crammed full with wisdom; but presented in a lovely, humorous and personable manner.
As the author writes:
Come along and enjoy the ride!
It will certainly take you to places you have never known.
The Author
Sandra Bain Cushman began her passion for creative action in theatre studies at Cornell University. Since training as an Alexander Teacher she has gone on to work with musicians, actors and actresses, writers, business and medicals professionals. She is an associate teacher with Guitar Craft and a founder of Orchestral Maneuvers: an undertaking aimed at developing presence, coordination and attention for the individual musicians within a group or orchestra. Sandra is also a graduate of Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing; a faculty member for the McIntyre Department of Music at the University of Virginia, and the Contemplative Sciences Center of UVA. She currently runs an AmSAT-approved teacher training course in Charlottesville. She has two grown up sons and lives with her husband on a mountainside in Virginia.
Sales: Pablo Mandel
pomera.argentina@gmail.com