This intimate portrait of the Colorado Plateau celebrates the landscape in photographs and writing. Erv Schroeder's photographs bear witness to the primordial forces of the earth--the raw power that moved and shifted huge hunks of rock to form natural stone sculptures. Schroeder's prints engage the viewer on an intimate level, acting as portals to contemplative worlds, inviting the viewer on an inner journey. As further guides to the landscape and its significance, he has invited indigenous writers--Natanya Ann Pulley, Rainy Dawn, Esther G. Belin, Orlando White, and Tacey M. Atsitty--to contribute poems that speak about these places. Celebrated Acoma storyteller Simon J. Ortiz introduces the photography and poetry with his musings on stone. In addition, an essay by geologist Marcia Bjornerud explores the geology of the region.
Erv Schroeder is a photographer who also works as a user-interface analyst and graphic and web designer. He lives in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. His work has been widely exhibited in galleries all over the United States. He has been an artist in residence at the Petrified Forest National Park and a featured artist in F-Stop magazine.
"The Memory of Stone is a volume to be savored slowly and to be revisited frequently. The photographs are at once intimate and grand. The accompanying texts deserve multiple readings as they reflect upon the complexity of time and identity, human and geologic."--Eric Henderson, dean of Arts and Sciences, Northland Pioneer College
"This amazing book will repay long exposure and repeated return. There are some suggestions in the text about how to read these rocks, but there's also an openness that will invite you in."--Bill McKibben, from the Foreword
"In Erv Schroeder's recent photographs the viewer is treated to a meditation on the mysteries of the West through an intensive gaze into its rock formations. The diminutive prints are nothing less than gemlike in their rich tonalities and truly unique perspectives on what makes this landscape such a potent subject for photographers."--Walter Mason, Director, Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University