Riley Goodman
Riley Goodman
From Yonder Wooded Hill
Hunter Green Suede Cover
128 Pages
8.75” x 12”
2022
Fall Line Press
About the Book:
From Yonder Wooded Hill , an exploration of folklore, family, and place, investigates what we choose to remember versus what chooses to remember us. Based in the Patapsco River Valley of Maryland and expanding to his ancestral West Virginia and North Carolina, Riley Goodman brings to life the customs and legends on which he was raised. The result creates a visual narrative that juxtaposes Goodman’s own heritage and that of his ancestors to show the interwoven continuum of a long-passed yet ever-present culture embedded in hills near and far to his upbringing.
Image Courtesy of the Artist
Book review by Vann Powell |
Riley Goodman’s debut monograph, From Yonder Wooded Hill, published by Atlanta based photobook imprint Fall Line Press, released in 2022, presents as a kind of excavation of familial history and folk beliefs by way of the Appalachian diaspora. The attention to crafting a compelling visual narrative around the formation of identity based on one's roots and the places and stories that feeds, nurtures, and sustains a life, is one intimately felt between the pages of From Yonder Wooded Hill.
Originally from Catonsville Maryland, Goodman is now based in Richmond, VA. From Yonder Wooded Hill deals with the effect his family’s past and place of life in Appalachia has had on his upbringing. Though Goodman is not from the area himself, it has left an indelible mark on who he is, his relation to nature, as well as his outlook and beliefs about the world. And so, begins From Yonder Wooded Hill.
Even before opening the book, one is struck by the look and feel of the cover. A hue of deep forest green velveteen like texture dresses the exterior of the book. The cover material is at the same time both pleasing from a tactile, hand feel, perspective as well as a strong story telling conceit from the start, hinting to viewers of the corporeal, tactile nature of the substantive body of work that is From Yonder Wooded Hill. It also seems fitting that the title appears as handwritten script. The cover’s handwriting is his grandmother’s, whose influence inspired most of the series. This small detail along with the other family members' handwriting peppered throughout the book further reinforces the tangible nature of self this book tackles.
Image Courtesy of the Artist
More to the material nature and world building elements present in this work, the series is intermittently punctuated with a series of poems, maps, news clippings, and works of ephemera that further deepens the conceptual through line of tactile-ness that aids to the success of the book, underlining the tangible past felt in the present that Goodman so deftly communicates. Through his use of recounting familial folk lore and beliefs coupled with the inclusion of handwritten accounts of family folk lore, Goodman underlines his own efforts and the importance of this endeavor in understanding and uncovering what of his family’s past is alive and resonates in him today.
Riley’s photographs themselves are almost documentary in style. They are constructed to aid in the complex story of past and its effects on a present agent. When presented with leafless trees and branches at first glance one might miss the narrative set-up Goodman has constructed for later revealed meaning. At times there are jarring juxtapositions and what may seem like red herrings, like the image of a miniature house model. This image sticks out in the best way, and later reveals itself to have a more personal meaning for the artist and their feelings of home.
Image Courtesy of the Artist
From Yonder Wooded Hill feels most alive in the rich rhythm of its sequencing. The dynamic aspect of Riley’s usage of materials alongside his photographs synthesizes well to help deepen the world and inquiry engaged within the pages. The photographs themselves are sharp reminders and clues that the Faulknerian adage “The past is never dead, it's not even past,” still rings clear and true. Riley’s carefully constructed familial scenes and portraits contrasted with flood water remnants high in tree branches speak to the haunting events from our pasts that many could relate to - the feeling of some formative event from our past can feel so pertinent to who we are that we get the mental impression that it just happened yesterday. Taking careful pauses to introduce characters which seem as though they have been plucked from his heirloom family albums, Goodman spurs the narrative on while also deepening the mysterious world the reader will find themselves engrossed in once immersed between the pages.
A tale of familial folk lore told with a colorful weave of materiality and haunting energy, Riley Goodman’s From Yonder Wooded Hill successfully captures what it feels like listening to old family tales while flipping through the family photo album. It is most compelling for those photographers, artists, and thinkers interested in how our backgrounds give rise to the people we are today. Careful not to draw any conclusions about identity, rather From Yonder Wooded Hill traces the paths of the stories, tall-tales and lore which constitutes the meta-narrative and myth of self.
Image Courtesy of the Artist
Image Courtesy of the Artist
