Goat Light Tom Rankin / Jill McCorkle.

This fine press book is an aesthetically rich celebration of a special plot of land shared by Tom and Jill (along with a bevy of goats and other animals) for over a decade in the heart of North Carolina’s Piedmont region.

Goat Light provides focused reflections by Rankin and McCorkle upon their home and farm northwest of Hillsborough in rural Orange County, an oasis of beauty quietly tucked away from the increasingly frenetic pace of the Triangle region. The 9 x 10 inch, 96 page book weaves together many layers, including black and white photographs made by Tom with large and medium format view cameras and lovingly brought to life in his darkroom; color cellphone pictures taken on the move by Tom over the past decade; and essays by both Jill and Tom about life with their collection of animals that populate their land along the Eno River. The beauty of the Piedmont landscape is the underlying constant as times and lives and light change through the seasons and over the years. 

The writings touch on timeless themes, some revealing themselves as especially prescient and poignant in these challenging Covid-inflected days that remind us of the sacredness of home, the importance of light at the golden hour as a cathartic tonic, and the intimacy of tending to and raising animals. Special moments of all seasons are brought to light and the printed pages become a gallery of sorts as turning the pages reveals the beauty of a special place and the patterns of life at Goat Light.

Goat Light is published in an edition of 750 sewn copies, offset printed in full color on heaveyweigiht 120lb uncoated text weight paper, and with covers printed on a hand-fed, hand-cranked letterpress at the H&B studio. The  heavyweight uncoated cover stock is a mottled color somewhere between that of burlap and a hay bale. The first 100 copies already went into the word signed by both Tom and Jill.

A deluxe limited edition of 26 copies, lettered A–Z, and signed by both Tom and Jill, includes an 8 by 10 inch selenium toned, gelatin silver contact print of an image not found in the book — and which will not be printed outside of this context. 

Tom Rankin, Professor of the Practice of Art at Duke University, is a photographer, folklorist, and writer. His books include, among others, Sacred Space: Photographs of the Mississippi Delta, Deaf Maggie Lee Sayre: Photographs of a River Life, and One Place: Paul Kwilecki and Four Decades of Photographs from Decatur County, Georgia. 

Jill McCorkle is the author of seven novels, including the 2020 Hieroglyphics and four story collections. Her work has appeared in numerous periodicals and four of her short stories have been selected for Best American Short Stories. 

The two editions sell for $65 and $375. (wholesale discount is 40% for non-returnable books).

9 x 10 inches
Full color offset interior on 120lb text weight paper
letterpress printed covers (with cover flaps)
custom bookmark
sewn binding
$65

Deluxe edition comes with 8 x 10 inch frameable gelatin silver print (less than 10 copies remain, price will bump up to $500 when there are only five copies left)
$375