Book of the day and a DOUBLE book signing (with Ed Templeton for Teenage Smokers 2 and MORE!) on Saturday! Join us and Ed and Ethan for book signings and bourbon and... walnut pie!!! > Ethan Rafal: Shock and Awe.

“A complex autobiographical project examining the relationship between protracted war and homeland decay, Shock and Awe is a meticulously crafted work combining image, text, and found objects compiled over twelve years of traveling the United States that blurs the line between author and subject, and personal versus authoritative histories. Drawing from the traditions of documentary photography and writing set on the American road, the unique, hand-made journal was created with transfer prints, handwriting, and found materials that were bound in the remains of an abandoned vehicle. This trade edition limited to five hundred copies carefully reproduces every inch of every page conveying the look and feel of the original down to its strap closure. Made by middle-class workers in Spain, the paper was sustainably harvested in Finland, and the cloth is from New England.

The artist introduces audiences to this work through his ongoing “Shock and Awe Book Tour” which returns the journal to the people and places depicted, bringing author, subject, and viewer into an exploration of the total meaning of the work. The presentation of Shock and Awe is equal parts story-telling, show-and-tell, and group discussion featuring for its Arcana stop ample homemade cast-iron walnut pie served with bourbon and milk.

Ethan Rafal's multi-media works deal with the individual and collective experience of violence, and the ways in which subsequent representations of violence inform personal and national mythologies. He helps run The Farmstand - an alternative artspace on a farm in Northern California - and collaborates with the Bay Area's Art For a Democratic Society.”