The Middle of Somewhere
Trinity University Press,U.S. (Verlag)
978-1-59534-961-3 (ISBN)
There’s no such thing as the middle of nowhere. Everywhere is the middle of somewhere for some living being. That was Suzanne Stryk’s mantra as she journeyed through her home state on a mission inspired by the reflective, encyclopedic sensibility of Thomas Jefferson’s book Notes on the State of Virginia.
While acknowledging the moral contradictions in the founding father’s work and life, Stryk offers a contemporary interpretation of Virginia’s ecology from a visual artist’s point of view. She kayaks pristine swamps in river country, wanders the galleries of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, hikes rocky trails across the Appalachians, and strolls the dusty streets of old coal towns. She encounters frogs, millipedes, ravens, dragonflies, sparrows, turtles, and many other species that claim a particular place as home.
Weaving in historical anecdotes and personal memories, Stryk relates her encounters with these beings in their “somewheres.” The creatures in their habitats and the people she meets are characters in the book, a tapestry of essays, lush sketches, and ephemera. Stryk’s multimedia collages, composed of dead bugs, tourist pamphlets, road maps, pressed leaves, rusty farm equipment, animal bones, and handwritten directions, all artistically arranged over USGS topographic maps, bring the narrative to life.
Stryk’s personal accounts and conversational tone make readers feel as if they are traveling across Virginia with a friend, one who is at times funny and at other times deeply reflective. She invites us to travel slowly, tread lightly, and look closely at each somewhere that defines a place.
Suzanne Stryk is an artist who finds equal fascination in the natural world and the visual arts. Her conceptual nature paintings and assemblages have appeared in solo exhibitions throughout the United States, and her portfolios and related writings have been featured in Terrain.org, Orion, Ecotone, and the Kenyon Review. She is the recipient of a George Sugarman Foundation grant and a Virginia Commission for the Arts fellowship for the project “Notes on the State of Virginia,” the precursor to The Middle of Somewhere. She lives in southwest Virginia.
Contents
Preface
1. The Green Fuse
2. Daily Observations
3. Gaining Ground
4. What the Mockingbird Told Me
5. The Dragon
6. Back to the Garden
7. The Dinosaur and the Bridge
8. Life Cycle
9. Field Notes
10. Coal Tattoo
11. Water Way
12. Natural History of an Art Museum
13. Refuge
14. Dialogue on the Tides
15. Flyway
16. Nest-Making
17. Lost and Found
18. On the Road
19. Looking Backward
20. Sacrament
21. Collecting the Wild
22. How the Past Returns
23. World Enough
24. Salamandering
25. Pilgrim
Acknowledgments
Image Notes
| Erscheinungsdatum | 02.08.2021 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | color |
| Verlagsort | San Antonio |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 177 x 228 mm |
| Themenwelt | Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Natur / Ökologie |
| Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Ökologie / Naturschutz | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-59534-961-8 / 1595349618 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-59534-961-3 / 9781595349613 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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