Selected Product:
| The Oxford Project
Hardcover
Author: Stephen G. Bloom
Publisher: Welcome Books
Release Date: 2008-09-16
ISBN-10: 1599620480
ISBN-13: 9781599620480
List Price: $50.00
Average Customer Rating:
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Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
In 1984, photographer Peter Feldstein set out to photograph every single resident of his town, Oxford, Iowa (pop. 676). He converted an abandoned storefront on Main Street into a makeshift studio and posted fliers inviting people to stop by. At first they trickled in slowly, but in the end, nearly all of Oxford stood before Feldstein's lens. Twenty years later, Feldstein decided to do it again. Only this time he invited writer Stephen G. Bloom to join him, and together they went in search of the same Oxford residents Feldstein had originally shot two decades earlier. Some had moved. Most had stayed. Others had passed away. All were marked by the passage of time.
In a place like Oxford, not only does everyone know everyone else, but also everyone else's brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, lovers, secrets, failures, dreams, and favorite pot luck recipes. This intricate web of human connections between neighbors friends, and family, is the mainstay of small town American life, a disappearing culture that is unforgettably captured in Feldstein's candid black-and-white portraiture and Bloom's astonishing rural storytelling.
Meet the town auctioneer who fell in love with his wife in high school while ice-skating together on local ponds; his wife who recalls the dress she wore as his prom date over fifty years ago; a retired buck skinner who started a gospel church and awaits the rapture in 2028; the donut baker at the Depot who went from having to be weighed on a livestock scale to losing over 150 pounds with the support of all of Oxford; a twenty-one-year-old man photographed in 1984 as an infant in his father's arms, who has now survived both of his parents due to tragedy and illness.
Considered side-by-side, the portraits reveal the inevitable transformations of aging: wider waistlines, wrinkled skin, eyeglasses, and bowed backs. Babies and children have instantly sprouted into young nurses, truck drivers, teachers, and rodeo riders, become Buddhists, racists, democrats, and drug addicts. The courses of lives have been irrevocably altered by deaths, births, marriages, and divorces. Some have lost God--others have found Him. But there are also those for whom it appears time has almost stood still. Kevin Somerville looks eerily identical in his 1984 and 2004 portraits, right down to his worn overalls, shaggy mane, and pale sunglasses. Only the graying of his lumberjack beard gives away the years that have passed.
Face after face, story after story, what quietly emerges is a living composite of a quintessential Midwestern community, told through the words and images of its residents--then and now. In a town where newcomers are recognized by the sound of an
unfamiliar engine idle, The Oxford Project invites you to discover the unexpected details, the heartbreak, and the reality of lives lived on the fringe of our urban culture.
Very good book!
| Customer Rating: | | What a fantastic concept! I love all the people, the stories and the pictures. This is a great look at small town life. |
Fun detective book
| Customer Rating: | | As you are reading the book you will find yourself going back to see the connections these people have with one anohter. Not only a great photo book but the stories are a good read. |
Wonderful and unique
| Customer Rating: | | Moving and fascinating; read it straight through. The authors have enough sense to get out of the way and let the people speak for themselves. The brief narratives are often better than the photos. One man talked about his baby daughter who died six days after being born and said, "I took her outside so she could feel the breeze and hear the birds and listen to the sound of other children playing," which is one of the most moving things I have ever read. Most books are like some other book, but this one is unique. One of the best things you will ever read. Sad to see what 20 years does to us all, but uplifting in many ways. |
Great coffee table book
| Customer Rating:  | | This is an interesting book with an interesting premise. It's worth it just to look at the pictures alone, but the peoples' stories are very moving. |
Oxford Gold
| Customer Rating: | | I read about the Oxford project in the New York Times a few years ago. I was excited to see the book in publication. It is a fascinating look inside an American town and I felt like a bit of a peeping tom. It makes me wonder about people I knew 20 years ago and lost touch with. I've shared this book with several friends who have loved it as much as I have. |
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