Writer Liza Bakewell and photographer Kerry Michaels, both from Freeport, have collaborated on a book that features 100 quotes by Maine woman writers, along with 100 photos.

Bakewell and Michaels launched their joint book project, “A Gateless Garden, Quotes by Maine Women Writers,” on Jan. 20 at The Art Gallery of the University of New England, in Portland. Bakewell also edited the book. An exhibit of quotes and photographs is on display at The Art Gallery, and on Thursday, Feb. 26, at 5 p.m., Michaels and Bakewell will do a presentation and talk there. Neighbors in the Flying Point area of town, both Bakewell and Michaels have worked on previous publications.

“I spent a big chunk of my life writing about the power of images and language,” Bakewell said. “A book I published with W.W. Norton in 2011, ‘Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun,’ was about the word mother in Mexican Spanish and the images that attend it. Before that I co-edited ‘Looking High and Low: Art and Cultural Identity’ and co-authored ‘Object Image Inquiry: The Art Historian at Work.’ During that time, I wrote several articles on Frida Kahlo and the Mexican art world and directed a multimedia project on Mesoamerican writing systems (now located at mesolore.org). I’m about to embark upon writing a novel.

Michaels shot the book “Growing the Northeast Garden,” written by Andrew Keys and published by Timber Press, which is being released in February.

“I am also a contributing photographer and writer for Coastal Home magazine and shoot and write for a website, www.containergardening.about.com,” Michaels said.

Bakewell and Michaels answered questions regarding “A Gateless Garden” for Tri-Town Weekly.

Q: How did this collaboration come about?

Bakewell: In the spring of 2012, I returned to Maine, after a month hiatus in Arizona, with an idea ­– to edit a book of quotes by Maine women writers. I was the co-director of Maine Women Write at the time, along with Lisa Bowe, and I was looking for a project that would promote Maine women authors. Less than 24 hours off the plane, I mentioned the idea to my good friend Kerry Michaels, who immediately said, “I must do this book with you.” And that was that. Until then, I had not imagined the book with photographs. From that moment on, I haven’t imagined it without. The collaboration was perfect, made in heavenly Maine. Kerry’s photographs, rich narratives of their own, not only gave a home to the otherwise orphaned quotes, but together the quotes and the images took on a second life of their own making, one more than the sum of its parts.

Michaels: When Liza mentioned that she was thinking about doing a book of quotes by Maine women, my instant reaction was, “You must,” and “I need to do the photos.” I had just finished shooting a book and was ready to tackle another big project and this one sounded perfect.

Q: Quotes by Maine women writers seems to be a topic that could be difficult to narrow down. Did you set out on this with a certain number in mind? Was if difficult identifying the right photos?

Bakewell: Kerry and I had decided early on to give a page to each photo and one to each quote. We wanted a book of about 200 pages. This meant 100 quotes. I knew I wanted the quotes to begin with the writing of Madame Sally Wood, who wrote 200 years ago, and end with writers writing today. I did not have a thematic guide, other than quotes that offered narratives of their own, apart from their original context. I wanted the quotes to leave the reader pondering, perhaps as much about their own lives as those of the writers. Both Kerry and I wanted the quotes to work with the photos in a magical way. As it turned out, four themes emerged from the quotes once gathered – landscape and gardening, writing, love and loss, and home. I think that if Meygan Lackey (my assistant, an undergraduate at Brown University) and I had had themes as our guidepost while collecting quotes, it would not have worked out as organically.

Michaels: We knew from the beginning that we didn’t want the pairings to be literal, but instead evocative. This gave us both leeway and a challenge. Would the pairings mean as much to other people as they did to us? Would the writers be happy with how we were interpreting their words? Of course, some quotes were easier to pair than others there were even a few amazing quotes that we had to lose because we just couldn’t figure out an image that would work with them. But when we had a successful pairing it was clear that it worked. We kept shuffling them around until the last second, too.

Q: What about this subject inspired you?

Bakewell: I love good writing. It is one reason why I take so long to read a book. I grew up with a mother who kept a small, blank book that she filled with passages from works she loved, and very early on in my life I began to do the same. When my father died, I discovered he, also, had a blank book that he had filled over the course of a lifetime with quotes from his favorite authors. My family read these quotes when we spread his ashes in the St. Lawrence River. When I was in graduate school I was introduced to Jon Kabat-Zinn and his mindfulness teaching, at the core of which is the soothing nature of carefully selected quotes from prose and poetry. (Dr. Kabat-Zinn founded the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School over 40 years ago.) Last but not least, I had observed that the words of women in a 200-year collective had a message of strength and caring that I wanted to show others. Also, women writers fall into oblivion far faster than men writers.

Michaels: I’m a writer and a reader as well as a photographer, so the idea of pairing words with images just lit my imagination on fire. As we got further into the project, the excitement and interest just kept increasing. Liza did such an amazing job of picking quotes – short passages that told great stories on their own with so few words. When we found a photo to go with the words, it was almost as if they were dancing with each other and then we knew we had a match.

Q: A favorite quote? A favorite photo?

Bakewell: I am in love with every quote and every photo. Having said that, I have latched onto quotes day by day. Of late, I have fixated on a quote by Louise Dickinson Rich: “This is what I can’t decide: whether I don’t have any spare time at all, or whether most of my time is spare time.”

Michaels: You know that is like asking a mother to choose their favorite child. But here goes. I love the photo of a mother fox and kit. The den is right near my window and I feel so grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to live with and photograph several generations of foxes.

Q: What do you hope people will gain from reading this book?

Bakewell: Peace. Inspiration. Healing. Time out. Quotes can be a great source of healing – the quotes found in “A Gateless Garden,’” matched with Kerry’s photographs, especially. The reading experience of quotes is quite different from that of a book. It isn’t about turning the page. There is no plot to follow. Reading quotes creates a relationship between you, the reader, and the words of another. You need not be a woman to experience this relationship. You need not be from the time the quote was written or from the place the photograph was taken. You only need to slow down.

Michaels: A friend of a friend wrote this, “Thank you for sending a friend disguised as a book to be enjoyed and from which to grow with each reading.” Which was what we hoped and dreamed the book would mean.

Q: Tell us about Maine Women Write.

Bakewell: Maine Women Write is an organization that began four years ago as a way to promote the works of Maine women writers. In its short life, it has celebrated individual authors and books in annual events at Space Gallery; it has worked closely with independent bookstores to establish and help run MWW book clubs; and it has published “A Gateless Garden.” The next project in store is to publish a website with information that best serves the community, posting events, grants, writing and book clubs, publishing and editing opportunities, working with other organizations. After that, MWW will go in the direction its community members wish it to go, always with the mission to raise awareness of Maine women writers.

Michaels: Maine Women Write celebrates and promotes the extraordinary literary and journalistic talent of women writers we have here in the state.

Liza Bakewell, left, and Kerry Michaels launched their book “A Gateless Garden, Quotes by Maine Women Writers,” on Jan. 20 at The Art Gallery at the University of New England in Portland. Courtesy photo

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