I grabbed this book at a library book sale, for its regional history potential. I grew up on the fringes of the Catskills, and consider the area one of "my places". I was already familiar with the work of one of the artists featured, Ward Hermann, who was known for his realistic wildlife carvings and paintings, as well as his marvelous and hard-to-come-by book [Spans of Time: The Covered Bridges of Delaware County]. I found Smiley's book to be slightly disappointing, mainly in its lack of decent photographs of the work of the craftspeople being profiled. I don't quite see the point of a book like this without them. Except for an 8-page color section in the middle, which is more landscape than art, the photos are black and white, and without caption. I'm still puzzling over one of them, which is obviously something with a wood grain in it, but beyond that unidentifiable. Some of the author's detailed descriptions of a piece of intricately crafted furniture, or the technique of weaving a complicated plaid fabric made my eyes cross, especially since I wasn't then rewarded with a picture of the resulting thing of beauty. I'm not a fan of Jane Smiley's writing style, having previously sampled her fiction, but her final essay on "The Quilters" made this book worthwhile to me. It's a lovely evocation of an afternoon spent in the company of serene and talented women, absorbed in an ancient and satisfying activity. If only she'd included a picture of a quilt. Her book did serve as a jumping off place for me to investigate a handful of these artists further. Some of them have a web presence now (Smiley noted in her preface that at the time of writing, about 25 years ago, she didn't think any of them owned a personal computer.) Just take a look at the paper folding & cutting art of Marcia Guthrie or the woodworking of Steve Heller, for examples.

Review written in April 2009; updated February 2016