Places for the Spirit: Traditional African American Gardens

by Vaughn Sills (Photographer), Hilton Als (Foreword by), Lowry Pei (Introduction)

Overview

Places for the Spirit is a stunning collection of over 80 documentary photographs of African American folk gardens — and their creators — in the Deep South (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina). These landscapes have a unique historical significance due to the design elements and spiritual meanings that have been traced to the yards and gardens of American slaves and further back to their prior African heritage. These deceptively casual or whimsical foliage arrangements are subtle and symbolic reminders of the divine in everyday life, the cycles of nature, and implied right and wrong ways to live. In the spirit of “outsider” art traditions, blues musical roots, and other such folk manifestations, these gardens have a unique aesthetic and cultural significance. Over 20 years in the making, this is the first collection of fine art photography to document this subject and, as such, it adds greatly to our understanding and appreciation of this disappearing element of African American culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781595340641
Publisher:	Trinity University Press
Publication date:	08/31/2010
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	288,790
Product dimensions:	11.30(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Vaughn Sills is an associate professor of photography at Simmons College and has been a fine art photographer for more than thirty years. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, and her photography has been exhibited across the country including in twenty solo shows, most recently at the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. Her book One Family received an Award of Excellence from the Southern Library Association. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Hilton Als is an American writer and theater critic who writes for the New Yorker. He is a former staff writer for the Village Voice and former editor-at-large at Vibe magazine. He is the author of The Women, and his work has appeared in the Nation, the Believer, and the New York Review of Books. His honors include a Guggenheim fellowship, the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, and the Berlin Prize of the American Academy in Berlin. He has taught at Smith College, Wesleyan University, and Yale University.

Lowry Pei is the author of three novels, including Family Resemblances, and numerous stories and reviews in publications such as the New York Times, the Boston Review, and the Modern Language Quarterly. He teaches at Simmons College and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Editorial Reviews

Every once in a while, a unique and wonderful book appears. [This] is one of those extraordinary books.” — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"What she captured with her camera is the depth of meaning that these gardeners intended.” — Washington Post

“Looking at these black and white images sometimes feels like dropping paper flowers in a glass of water and watching them expand. Vaughn Sills's images make the mind expand like a rose, fragrant with vision.” — Hilton Als

“The photographs and Sills' sharing of the gardens and stories of their creators, in such an extraordinary and beautiful way, testifies to a remarkable documentarian and artist, and a visionary capable of stepping outside the fences of ordinary aesthetics into a realm of magic.” — Oyster Boy Review

“The art was never easy to find, materializing like night blooms in the woodlands and graveyards of rural black communities. Vaughn Sills, a Boston-based photographer, learned to look near historic downtowns, on the black side of the railroad tracks. And yet, she said, she had put perhaps 3,000 miles on rental cars in order to find 150 traditional African-American yards and gardens. Many of these appear in her beautiful 2010 book, Places for the Spirit.” — The New York Times

From the Publisher

Here is a book that is many things at once: a portfolio of black-and-white photographs of people and nature, a visual examination of gardens and gardeners, an exploration of a rarely documented aspect of the African American experience and folk culture. Photographer Sills traveled throughout the southern United States seeking gardens created and tended by African Americans. At first view, most of the gardens may seem quite ordinary, but Sills strives to capture the unique character of the plantings and accompanying ornamentation as expressions of the black gardeners' American experience. Commentary by the photographer and an introduction by her husband, author Lowry Pei (writing, Simmons Coll.), provide insight into the images. In their view, the gardens have a spiritual dimension, which can be traced back to African sources. VERDICT General readers interested in photography, gardening, or African American culture will find something of value in this volume.—Eugene C. Burt, Seattle

Library Journal