A Lifetime of Vermont People
For 60 years Peter Miller has photographed and written
about the character that makes Vermont. First it was
Vermont People, then Vermont Farm Women, and
Vermont Gathering Places. And finally…
On Monday, 18 March, 2013, we FedExed and emailed to our printer, EBS
of Verona, Italy, the scans and InDesign layouts of our new book, A Lifetime
of Vermont People.
It took 14 months and 9 days working seven days a week to photograph,
write, edit, proof, scan this elegant book. Carrie Cook worked through the
year on design, Kyle Green came up with the cover design and title of the
book, did the original scans and maintained the websites. Advisors gave
their opinions, and all helped in proofing. Books always involve teamwork.
So what we have is a coffee table book of 208-pages with 203 photographs
and 60 written profiles of Vermonters taken and interviewed between 1950
and 2013. All photographs were converted to duo tone scans that were then
laser adjusted by EBS printers in Italy into incredibly sharp and detailed
images.
Rusty Dewees The Logger, Vermont’s leading entertainer.
What took the time was the writing. Photography comes easily to me; writing does not. Whether it is two or ten columns it involves a couple of days of think time and at least four drafts.
The book is a summation of my project to document the rural Vermonters I have met during most of my life in Vermont, from the day I first photographed, in 1950, Will and Rowena Austin in Weston to Warren Kimble in Brandon in 2013.
The Italians are artists and so good at creating art books. This book has the
attention and care of such a book, from the design by Carrie Cook to the
quality of the paper, picked to match the black and white photographs and
the press used.
The cover is cloth, not the pliable and easily warped covers of so many mass produced books. The cover title and author’s name is embossed into the cover with gold foil. The cover photograph is also embossed into the cover as is the back cover, a photograph of a maple tree.
There is no dust jacket. There are no blurbs praising the author, no short
description of the book or bio of the author. In other words, this is an elegant
collectible book.
Printing the first edition of an art book is expensive. Kickstarter, individual
donations, books we have pre-sold and my own contribution have paid all
the expenses except $6,000. We asked for help to create this book. We still
are. Readers and friends have been very generous.
Diane St. Clair, Animal Farm, Orwell, VT. butter maker
We are pre-selling the book at $40.00, a discount of 20% from the retail price of $49.95 which begins on June 7th, when the book has its opening at Frog Hollow in Burlington, with a photo exhibition and a book signing.
To help us you may pre-order the book at www.silverprintpress.com. We can mail it to you or you can pick it up at the Frog Hollow opening on June 7 or at a pig roast at Peter Miller’s studio in Colbyville, next to Ben & Jerry’s, to be held late in June. We’ll let you know more about that later.