March 2014
The books are hand-sewn with linen thread and a cover of handmade paper from India.
Since 2007, Rob McDonald has been traveling the southeast to photograph the homes and personal landscapes of Southern writers whose works he has admired and taught as a professor of English and Fine Arts at Virginia Military Institute. An exhibition of the series, Native Ground, has been traveling continuously since 2012, and in February 2014, Rob partnered with his former student, book artist Amanda Cristina Berrios, to release the first of a projected two-volume limited edition book featuring selected images from the series.
Volume one features 19 individually trimmed and hand-tipped Indigo prints of photographs from the homes of Ellen Glasgow, Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Toomer, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, William Faulkner, Lillian E. Smith, Margaret Mitchell, Thomas Wolfe, Erskine Caldwell, Robert Penn Warren, James Still, James Agee, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, and Carson McCullers. Each photograph is introduced by a quotation from the author that amplifies the importance of place.
Each copy is hand-sewn with a cover of richly textured handmade paper, 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″, 44 pages. The limited edition of 25 is signed and numbered by the photographer and book artist. A special set of 7 artist proofs, each accompanied by a different frameable 3″x 3″ original photograph from the series, is also available. Inquire for availability.
Book artist Amanda C. Berrios graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in May 2013 with a major in psychology and minors in English, writing, and fine arts. She has applied to graduate programs in the book arts, creative writing, and Southern Studies for Fall 2014.
Order here: http://www.robmcdonaldphotography.com/#native-ground/49
