Useful Work

Designed and published for Ken Abbott
by Nathan W. Moehlmann, Goosepen Studio & Press

"Ken Abbott’s photography and Hickory Nut Gap Farm is a marriage made in heaven, or about as close as we get to heaven here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. For almost a hundred years, one extended family has lived on and created a uniquely beautiful farm and community in this place. In Useful Work, Ken Abbott so thoroughly and beautifully depicts the surface and soul of the Hickory Nut Gap home and farm that he reminds us how the best photographers can focus on something seemingly small, yet evoke our common humanity. This book represents an extraordinary achievement in life and in art."  — Alex Harris, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University

Ken Abbott earned his MFA in photography from Yale University in 1987. He received a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship Award for his photography at Hickory Nut Gap Farm in 2006. Prior to moving to Asheville, he was the Chief Photographer for the University of Colorado at Boulder. His work has been published and exhibited widely and is in many collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Yale University Art Gallery. He lives in Asheville with his wife and two children.

Aperture review of Ken's exhibition (and book) at the Asheville Art Museum.