A101. John Muir Trail

A101. Donna Thomas. John Muir Trail. Santa Cruz, California: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2000.

66.5 x 54 mm (2 5/8” x 2 1/8”), 62-page accordion, 40 copies.

Binding: Case-bound fold out accordion; bound in grey speckled paper over boards. Paper: Ivory, handmade by Peter Thomas. Printing: Digital. Typography: Reproduction of text handwritten by Donna Thomas. Illustration: Reproductions of twenty-eight watercolor paintings by Donna Thomas. Notes: Illustrations painted on the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

“Around this same time I began taking extended summer backpack trips in the Sierra Nevada. I always carried a compact watercolor set with, and on my 2000 twenty-eight day backpacking trip along the John Muir Trail I painted a miniature landscape each day, then used those paintings to make this book. The paper is a duplex sheet, white on the printed side so the illustrations would reproduce accurately and blue on the back, representing all the sky there is out in the wilderness. The original paintings were divided by day into 6 groups and made into one-of-a-kind books [B190], each bound in leather with an artifact I found on the trail inset into the cover.” – Donna Thomas