Artist Chuck Olson was telling a story at a book signing last week and as it unfurled you could see how his mind works -- continually observing, interpreting, analyzing, synthesizing, problem-solving, initiating -- all within a context of community that is personal and widespread, present and historic.

It's the mind-set that produces his rapturously colored abstract paintings, suggestive of voluminous worlds that resemble snippets from a dream. It's the character that propelled the production of the image-rich "Visual Histories" that he was signing and drove an additional $12,000 of fund raising so that the book could be printed in Pittsburgh rather than in China.

He was talking about having been in a Blockbuster store, where he noticed customers picking up one or more films. "The curse of our generation is the 'b' word," says Olson, who was born in Pittsburgh in 1953. "I always hear this from everyone: 'I'm busy.' " Watching, he began to think, "You've got two hours, and you have four hours, and ...." If people would put down the videos they'd gain that much extra time, he reasoned.

Olson is well aware of the extent to which we construct our individual universes, the building blocks coming from within and without. This is ultimately the basis for his work, which grapples with both empirical and metaphysical manifestations of the variety of parallel and sometimes colliding worlds he encounters.

An internationally exhibited artist who is associate professor of art and chairman of the Fine Arts Department at Saint Francis University in Loretto, Cambria County, Olson also spends considerable time in Europe. His wife, Marie Thomas-Olson, is French, and his family regularly summers in France. He also directs an annual four-week arts program that the university administers in Parma, Italy.

The Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art (SAMA), based in Loretto, offered Olson a solo exhibition three years ago, but in the intervening years, both the director and curator left. The museum honored its commitment to the exhibition but didn't have funding for the book that was to have accompanied it.

Olson stepped up to the plate and, with help from SAMA, kept the project alive. And when he found out that the cost difference between printing the book in China and in Pittsburgh was $12,000, he organized a benefit at James Gallery in the West End to raise that amount.

Food was served, and entertainment was provided by musician friends, including Donnie Iris, The Clarks, Bill Deasy and Rusted Root. The event included an auction, and Olson washed up a pair of work pants he had painted in all summer to contribute to it.

"The bidding started at $5," Olson says, but then it took off, and Donnie Iris placed the winning $150 bid. "He wore the pants to a sold-out show on the Gateway Clipper the next night."

The book's thoughtfully presented pages are a multi-course visual and intellectual feast, during which the reader carries on a conversation with the artist. It's arranged in sections that loosely trace, through artworks made between the early 1990s and this year, Olson's aesthetic evolution from compositions more evidently inspired by "Object/Artifact" to "Landscapes" and, finally, to his current engagement with "Maps." An essay by critic Graham Shearing offers a considered means by which to approach Olson's work.

When publishing costs have been recovered, profits from the sale of the book will benefit SAMA.

The 120-painting exhibition, "Chuck Olson: Visual Histories," which the book complements, continues at SAMA Loretto through Feb. 10.

Using its nonprofit status and connections to facilitate the publication of an artist's catalog or book is one example of the way an arts organization can work with and support artists.

Another relatively recent publication of note is "Essence of Pittsburgh: The Paintings of Ron Donoughe in the Plein Air Style," a collaboration among the artist, Pittsburgh Filmmakers and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, where an exhibition of the same title opened in late 2006.

Donoughe has established a reputation for his finely rendered Pittsburgh scenes, though he may be seen painting urban and rural scapes throughout Western Pennsylvania.

The book is intimate and personal, part of that due to Donoughe's sensitive envisioning of the region we share. It's also due to its size, a cozy fit to hand and lap at 7 by 9 inches.

Nearly 150 paintings, ranging from a clump of peonies to overlook views, are reproduced in full color, variously centered on a page, some bleeding to the edge. In the middle is a foldout of 44 images, a pleasant surprise. And at the end, thumbnail reproductions of all of the works are accompanied by comments by Donoughe that have the immediacy of the moment conceived. Delightful.

Donoughe's studio is located in Lawrenceville, though he spends much of his working time out of doors. It was particularly sweet for the artist, born in 1958 in Loretto, that his exhibition traveled to SAMA earlier this year.

The books are available at the Center and Carnegie Museum of Art, among other locations. "Visual" is $50 hardback; "Essence" is $29 hardback, $18 paper. Donoughe has selected five of the paintings in the book, representing a range of neighborhoods and seasons, to reproduce as full color notecards; a box of four of each is $20.