The High Sierra of California - Softcover

Snyder, Gary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1890771996 ISBN 13: 9781890771997

Publisher: Heyday, 2016

Synopsis

The High Sierra of California is a brilliant tribute to the bold, jagged peaks that have inspired generations of naturalists, artists, and writers. Using traditional Japanese and European woodcut techniques, Killion has created stunning visual images of the Sierra that focus on the backcountry above nine thousand feet, accessible only on foot. Accompanying these riveting images are the journals of Gary Snyder, chronicling more than forty years of travels through the High Sierra backcountry.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

This edition of *The High Sierra of California* was adapted from the handprinted book that Tom Killion produced during the period from 1997-2000 at his Quail Press studio in Santa Cruz. The original edition was limited to 129 copies, printed on handmade Japanese papers in a folio format measuring about fifteen by twenty inches, with illustrations printed from Killion's hand-carved wood and linoleum blocks. Each section opened with a decorative Japanese paper to evoke the season and closed with a full-page woodcut image. Collectors immediately acquuired all available copies, and Killionhas since decided to make the book available to the general public. Artfully designed and adapted to the new format, and enhanced with additional excerpts from the backpacking journals of Gary Snyder, *The High Sierra of California* is, in Killion's words, "a richer book, both visually and textually, and very pleasing to the bookmaker in me."

*The High Sierra of California* also features excerpts from Gary Snyder's backpacking journals, covering nearly forty years of exploration--personal and spiritual as well as geographic--in the high country.

About the Author:

Woodcut and letterpress artist Tom Killion grew up in Marin County, California, on the slopes of Mt. Tamalpais, where the rugged scenery inspired him from an early age to create landscape prints strongly influenced by traditional Japanese woodblock prints. Along with publishing fine art letterpress books, Killion holds a PhD in African history from Stanford University and has taught history at several Bay Area universities. He is the founder of The Quail Press and his extensively illustrated books include 28 Views of Mount Tamalpais, The Coast of California, and Walls: A Journey Across Three Continents. You can find out more about his artwork at tomkillion.com.

Gary Snyder is a poet, author, scholar, cultural critic, and professor emeritus of the University of California at Davis who has published sixteen books of poetry and prose, including The Gary Snyder Reader (1952 1998). He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His Turtle Island won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1975, and his book-length poem Mountains and Rivers Without End won the Bollingen Prize in poetry in 1997. In 2008 he was awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement.

About this edition

• Publisher: Heyday
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1890771996
• ISBN 13: 9781890771997
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128
• Illustrator: Killion Tom