Walking Magpie: On and Off the Leash
by Chuck Forsman
Introduction by Eric Paddock

Winner of a Silver Medal for a 2013 IndieFab Book of the Year.
Nominated for a 2014 Independent Publisher Book Award.

People love dogs, and dogs love people. Walking a dog is one of the most visible and mutually beneficial manifestations of that bond. It is a ritual steeped in affection and obligation. It doesn't have a day off. It doesn't pay the bills or clean the dishes or do the laundry. Still, people and dogs alike gain the benefits of exercise, socialization, shared experiences, and observations. Another benefit, often overlooked, is the pleasure of mutually indulging in a trait that ordinary dogs share with extraordinary people: curiosity. This book is, in many ways, an ode to curiosity.

Walking Magpie is about a dog and what a dog sees. It is also a work of serious photography by a well-known and pioneering landscape artist: Chuck Forsman, who, for more than forty years, has been a keen observer of the interface between landscape and culture as expressed through his paintings and photographic art. As a result, Forsman often goes to places that might not be on everyone's radar screen.

In this book, Forsman took his Leica camera with him during his walks with Magpie, the family dog. Often these walks were in the neighborhood and surrounding hills where Forsman lives: near the Flatirons in Boulder. But Magpie joins Forsman on other adventures, from Alaska and the Northwest Territories of Canada to Florida, Ohio, and New York City. The intent is to turn these experiences into art. With each picture we sense mystery rather than clarity, questions about place rather than answers. We hardly can know what a dog knows, but with this book we can appreciate better what a dog sees and senses and experiences, helping the human and canine imagination to meld, at least a little.

$45.00 U.S. (trade discount) No e-book has been authorized.
Hardcover with jacket
136 pages with 79 photographs reproduced as duotones
11.0" x 9.0" (horizontal/landscape)
ISBN: 978–1–938086–11–3

Published Fall 2013

Distributed by Casemate/IPM
www.casemateipm.com
No e-book has been authorized.

Published in association with the Denver Art Museum

About the Author and the Essayist

Book Events:
January 15, 2014 at 7:30 pm
Book signing and talk
Boulder Book Store, Boulder, CO (click for more information)

Saturday, November 23, 2013 at 2:00 pm
Rocky Mountain Land Series Author Talk (click for the pdf)
Tattered Cover Book Store, Historic LoDo, Denver, CO

Exhibitions:
Opens to the public: Sunday November 17, 2013
A Chuck Forsman Retrospective
Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
Click to read the DAM On & Off the Wall article on the exhibition
Click to read the Denver Post article on the exhibition


Chuck Forsman and his wife, Kristin Lewis, are all smiles at the opening of Chuck's spectacular solo exhibition at the Denver Art Museum. The show, entitled "Seen in Passing," features three of Chuck's paintings plus fifty-six photos from his two complementary photo books: the just released Walking Magpie: On and Off the Leash and Western Rider: Views from a Car Window. The exhibition runs through May 25, 2014. Photograph by George F. Thompson.

Listen to an interview with Chuck Forsman on Colorado Public Radio

Book Information Sheet (pdf)