{ “Cool Pastoral Splendor” kicks off a new series of rural field guides }

M12, an international rural arts collective, just published two cool little books. From a publications standpoint, they’re really interesting: small “field guides” of ephemera, published as a series. Like erudite zines. Here’s what M12 said about the project in an email, sent yesterday:

The Center Pivot Series is produced by Last Chance Press (M12) in collaboration with Jap Sam Books. Each of the volumes is produced in a limited edition of 250 copies and formatted as a small field guide. Through interdisciplinary approaches, this series explores and connects the changing realities of rural landscapes and communities around the world. The books present an array of curated notes, documents, and research ephemera combined with images, poetry, and more formal visual and written works. Each volume is assembled and edited by M12 Studio. M12 is pleased to be working closely with publisher Jap Sam Books and designer Peter de Kan on these editions. The “spinning horse” logo for the Last Chance Press books and records has been designed by American artist Star Wallowing Bull (Ojibwe-Arapaho, b. 1973).

Cool Pastoral Splendor (No. 01)
“Cool Pastoral Splendor includes a selection of pictures from Richard Saxton’s Rural Research Archive and accompanying writings by Kurt Wagner. Saxton and Wagner are among a rare breed of artists focusing on the non-heroic, psychic and lyrical unfolding of daily events. Both Saxton and Wagner infuse the work with their own rural experiences, but no single genre or culture captures the whole of these intentions. Cool Pastoral Splendor leaves us in search of beauty hidden in plain sight.”  -Kirsten Stoltz

An Equine Anthology (No. 02)
“An Equine Anthology stitches together non-linear histories, testimonies, and interpretations of equine culture from the American Southwest and beyond. Far from representing binaries of the romantic and mundane, of personality and commodity, An Equine Anthology presents the reader with a broad topographical view of the horse, an image that reaches well beyond that of American mythology. M12’s anthology combines poetics with research methodologies that delve into the unseen, hidden, and overlooked to create a work that is greater than the sum of its parts.”  – Sanjit Sethi, Executive Director of the Santa Fe Art Institute

M12 is primarily concerned with art, research, education and outreach, so it makes sense for them to culminate their work into publications. They started with a book chronicling their ten years of work, so now I’m interested to see where the Center Pivot Series goes.