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.
Return to Taos: Eric Sloane's Sketchbook of Roadside Americana
Return to Taos: Eric Sloane's Sketchbook of Roadside Americana
In an extraordinary book that is also a rare autobiographical work, Eric Sloane shares his travel experiences during two trips he made from New York to his beloved Taos--in 1925 and again in 1960. The first time around, as a young man, he worked his way across America in a rickety Model T Ford, painting signs on bridges and barns to pay expenses. The story of that journey is recounted here by the revered "cracker-barrel philosopher" as he weaves his reminiscences in with an account of his journey to the New Mexican town 35 years later.