California’s Wild Edge - Dinner at Toby’s Feed Barn

Artist Tom Killion and poet Gary Snyder have reunited to produce another exquisite book, California’s Wild Edge, The Coast in Prints, Poetry, and History. Killion’s printmaking captures the beauty of the California coast from Mendocino to Point Lobos and beyond, portraying the rocky cliffs, storm tides, and serene moonlit coves.

The beauty of his art is deepened by Snyder’s poetry, as well as by selections from other poets, storytellers, and travelers. On June 27 Killion and Snyder will be joined by two of them, Jane Hirshfield and Jerry Martien, for a transformative evening of readings and conversation at West Marin School preceded by a limited-seating, delicious dinner at Toby’s Feed Barn. Hirshfield's poems range from the metaphysical to the political; Martien is a writer, teacher, and activist. The book is published by Berkeley-based nonprofit Heyday. Presented by Point Reyes Books and Heyday as a benefit for Heyday’s independent publishing program with sponsorship by Barbara Boucke, Nion McEvoy and Leslie Berriman, Jeannene Przyblyski, Susan Raynes, Liz Sutherland, Jerry Tone and Martha Wyckoff, Michael and Shirley Traynor, and Stevens Van Strum.

An exhibit of Tom Killion's "Wild Edge" print show will be featured in Toby's Feed Barn Gallery from June 27 to July 31. Framed Killion prints of the California coast will be available for purchase.

About Tom Killion:
Tom was born and raised in Mill Valley, California, on the slopes of Mt. Tamalpais. The rugged scenery of Marin County and Northern California inspired him from an early age to create landscape prints using linoleum and wood, strongly influenced by the traditional Japanese Ukiyo-ë style of Hokusai and Hiroshige. He studied History at UC Santa Cruz, where he was introduced to fine book printing by William Everson and Jack Stauffacher. During the early 1980s, Tom divided his time between history research in Europe and Africa, and the development of his multi-color woodcut prints. He worked as administrator of a medical relief program in a camp for Ethiopian refugees in Sudan and traveled with nationalist rebels in war-torn Eritrea. In 1990, Tom produced Walls: A Journey Across Three Continents—an extensively illustrated travel book combining his African experiences with woodcut printmaking. Killion then taught African History at Bowdoin College, Maine, and in 1994 was a Fulbright scholar at Asmara University in Eritrea.

In 1995, Tom returned to California and taught in the Humanities Department at San Francisco State University while he worked on a new hand-printed, large-format book, The High Sierra of California in collaboration with Pulitzer prize-winning poet Gary Snyder. In 2008 Tom and Gary published a second collaboration, Tamalpais Walking.

About Gary Snyder: Gary Snyder began his career in the 1950s as a noted member of the “Beat Generation,” though he has since explored a wide range of social and spiritual matters in both poetry and prose. Snyder’s work blends physical reality and precise observations of nature with inner insight received primarily through the practice of Zen Buddhism. While Snyder has gained attention as a spokesman for the preservation of the natural world and its earth-conscious cultures, he is not simply a “back-to-nature” poet with a facile message. In American Poetry in the Twentieth Century, Kenneth Rexroth observed that although Snyder proposes “a new ethic, a new esthetic, [and] a new life style,” he is also “an accomplished technician who has learned from the poetry of several languages and who has developed a sure and flexible style capable of handling any material he wishes.” (poetryfoundation.org/bio/gary-snyder)

About Heyday: Heyday is an independent, nonprofit publisher and unique cultural institution. It promotes widespread awareness and celebration of California’s many cultures, landscapes, and boundary-breaking ideas. Through its well-crafted books, public events, and innovative outreach programs it is building a vibrant community of readers, writers, and thinkers.

About Jane Hirshfield: Prize-winning poet, translator, and essayist Jane Hirshfield’s poetry speaks to the central issues of human existence—desire and loss, impermanence and beauty, the many dimensions of our connection with others and the wider community of creatures and objects with which we share our lives. Demonstrating with quiet authority what it means to awaken into the full capacities of attention, her work sets forth a hard-won affirmation of our human fate.

About Jerry Martien: Jerry Martien is the author of a collection of poetry, Pieces in Place; a nonfiction book: Shell Game: A True Account of Beads and Money in North America; and a spoken word CD, Jerry Martien & the Band of Angels.  He taught creative writing and nature writing at Humboldt State University.