George Masa's Wild Vision: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina

Description: George Masa's Wild Vision by Brent Martin Winner of the Thomas Wolfe Award2023 Phillip D. Reed Environmental Writing Award FinalistGeorge Masas Wild Vision recounts the incredible, overlooked life of the photographer George Masa.Self-taught photographer George Masa (born Masahara Iizuka in Osaka, Japan), arrived in Asheville, North Carolina at the turn of the twentieth century amid a period of great transition in the southern Appalachians.Masas photographs from the 1920s and early 1930s are stunning windows into an era where railroads hauled out the remaining old-growth timber with impunity, new roads were blasted into hillsides, and an activist community emerged to fight for a new national park. Masa began photographing the nearby mountains and helping to map the Appalachian Trail, capturing this transition like no other photographer of his time. His images, along with his knowledge of the landscape, became a critical piece of the argument for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, compelling John D. Rockefeller to donate $5 million for initial land purchases. Despite being hailed as the "Ansel Adams of the Smokies," Masa died, destitute and unknown, in 1933., poet and environmental organizer Brent Martin explores the locations Masa visited, using first-person narratives to contrast, lament, and exalt the condition of the landscape the photographer so loved and worked to interpret and protect. The book includes seventy-five of Masas photographs, accompanied by Martins reflections on Masas life and work. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Brent Martin is the author of three chapbook collections of poetry and ofThe Changing Blue Ridge Mountains: Essays on Journeys Past and Present. His poetry and essays have been published in the North Carolina Literary Review, Pisgah Review, Tar River Poetry, Chattahoochee Review, Eno Journal, New Southerner, Kudzu Literary Journal, Smoky Mountain News and elsewhere. He lives in the Cowee community in Western North Carolina, where he and his wife, Angela Faye Martin, run Alarka Institute. Review "If I were making a personal top ten list of important Appalachian artists, writers, and musicians, Id include—along with more well-known names like Doc Watson and Nikki Giovanni—photographer George Masa. Brent Martins introduction splendidly places Masa and his work in the context of the mountains they both love so much—a perfect match since Martin, like Masa, has spent most of his adult life studying the southern mountains, protecting them, exploring them." —Charles Frazier, National Book Award-winning author of Varina"George Masa fascinated people who knew him while he was alive, and his life and work have many of us even more curious (or obsessed) a hundred years later. Brents book transcends time with creative insights and reflections on the natural world that honor George Masas Wild Vision. His journey in Masas bootprints is at times personal and contemplative and other times communal and philosophical, asking big questions about our appreciation and stewardship of the natural world today. Im certain Masa would enjoy a campfire chat with Brent." —Paul Bonesteel, Director and founder of Bonesteel Films Promotional PublicityConfirmed: Blue Ridge Public Radio, All Things Considered (Run date tbd)Confirmed: WUTC (Air date May 20)Confirmed: Coverage in Smoky Mountain News (Run date: June 15)Confirmed: Interview in Mountain Xpress (Run date TBD)Confirmed: Round-Up in WNC Magazine (June/July Issue)Confirmed: Review in Southern Review of Books (Late June)Confirmed: Round-up in The Laurel of Asheville (Run-date July)Placement of book within Fathers Day supplements in national mags (Sierra Magazine, Garden & Gun etc)Awareness campaign with NC/GA/SC conservation and nature groupsTie-in to National Parks (Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area)Event schedule across SC and NCSeeking coverage in the national outlets that we always pitch (including the New York Times, NPR, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, etc) Long Description George Masas Wild Vision recounts the incredible, overlooked life of the photographer George Masa. Self-taught photographer George Masa (born Masahara Iizuka in Osaka, Japan), arrived in Asheville, North Carolina at the turn of the twentieth century amid a period of great transition in the southern Appalachians. Masas photographs from the 1920s and early 1930s are stunning windows into an era where railroads hauled out the remaining old-growth timber with impunity, new roads were blasted into hillsides, and an activist community emerged to fight for a new national park. Masa began photographing the nearby mountains and helping to map the Appalachian Trail, capturing this transition like no other photographer of his time. His images, along with his knowledge of the landscape, became a critical piece of the argument for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, compelling John D. Rockefeller to donate $5 million for initial land purchases. Despite being hailed as the "Ansel Adams of the Smokies," Masa died, destitute and unknown, in 1933. , poet and environmental organizer Brent Martin explores the locations Masa visited, using first-person narratives to contrast, lament, and exalt the condition of the landscape the photographer so loved and worked to interpret and protect. The book includes seventy-five of Masas photographs, accompanied by Martins reflections on Masas life and work. Review Quote "If I were making a personal top ten list of important Appalachian artists, writers, and musicians, Id include--along with more well-known names like Doc Watson and Nikki Giovanni--photographer George Masa. Brent Martins introduction splendidly places Masa and his work in the context of the mountains they both love so much--a perfect match since Martin, like Masa, has spent most of his adult life studying the southern mountains, protecting them, exploring them." -- Charles Frazier, National Book Award-winning author of Varina "George Masa fascinated people who knew him while he was alive, and his life and work have many of us even more curious (or obsessed) a hundred years later. Brents book transcends time with creative insights and reflections on the natural world that honor George Masas Wild Vision. His journey in Masas bootprints is at times personal and contemplative and other times communal and philosophical, asking big questions about our appreciation and stewardship of the natural world today. Im certain Masa would enjoy a campfire chat with Brent." --Paul Bonesteel, Director and founder of Bonesteel Films Description for Sales People This is the first nonfiction entry in the Cold Mountain Fund Series, in partnership with Charles Frazier. A richly visual volume with over 75+ photos and archival photos of Masas life. This book deals directly with the anti-Asian racism that kept Masa from achieving the notoriety of other Documents Masas dual interest in capturing the Smoky and Appalachian ranges in photos, while also actively working to preserve them. Author Brent Martin mined Masas letters, journals, and photos and visited the locations that Masa visited throughout the nineteen-twenties and early thirties. The resulting book is an inspiring exploration of Masas photographic vision through Martins own direct experience of living in the western North Carolina mountains. When Ansel Adams visited the Great Smokies in 1948 to photograph for a National Park Service project documenting Americas National Parks, he wrote to a friend that "the Smokys (sic) are ok in their way, but they are going to be devilish hard to photograph." Adams produced just four photos from his brief time in the park, and likely had no knowledge of the deceased Japanese photographer, George Masa, who had died fifteen years earlier in 1933 after pursuing those devilish hard mountains for almost two decades, with such a superb eye and skill that he would later be referred to as the Ansel Adams of the Smokies. His obsession with perfection was legendary, and his photographs reveal an eye for light that Adams would have surely admired and respected. The Asheville Citizen-Times NC Highway Historical Marker honor pioneering photographer George Masa (citizen-times.com) Details ISBN1938235932 Author Brent Martin Short Title George Masas Wild Vision Publisher Hub City Press Language English Year 2022 ISBN-10 1938235932 ISBN-13 9781938235931 Format Paperback Subtitle A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina Pages 160 Imprint Hub City Press Country of Publication United States Series Cold Mountain Fund Series NZ Release Date 2022-08-04 US Release Date 2022-08-04 UK Release Date 2022-08-04 Publication Date 2022-08-04 DEWEY 770.92 Audience General AU Release Date 2022-09-26 Illustrations Illustrations We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:135469737;

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