ERIC SLOANE
Eric Sloane (1905-1985), the great American artist and preservationist of early American material culture, was a profound influence on me. As a lad I became fascinated with tools and their meaning (both practical and philosophical) to the men and women and children who used them, created them, adapted them, and respected them from the colonial days to the days of mass reproduction and imports. Reading Sloane and studying his illustrations made me forever interested in local history, small-scale and regional and personal. We carry anything of his that is in print, hardcover and paperback when we can get it, and I recommend it all highly.
For Spacious Skies: A Sketchbook of American Weather
For Spacious Skies: A Sketchbook of American Weather
The finest "cloudscape" painter of his generation, Eric Sloane enjoyed traveling back in time to explore how early American farmers interpreted and embraced weather signs. Examining old records, he learned that most farmers kept daily weather reports, which they referred to year after year to help them decide when to plant, harvest, and perform other farm chores.
Combining elements of meteorology and Americana, this book features dozens of Sloane's excellent black-and-white illustrations and sixteen splendid full-color paintings. They complement a text about American weather, and in particular, American skies--from Vermont's swirling clouds and Florida thunderheads to New Mexico cloudscapes and Maine fogs. "You can almost tell where you are by looking upward," he says. In this unique book, he explains why.