Scott Jost, associate professor of art at Bridgewater College, will read from the oral histories of apple growers who live and work in the Shenandoah Valley and Blue Ridge regions of Virginia at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 16, in Cole Hall at Bridgewater College.
The presentation includes color photographs of the apple growers’ orchards and workplaces. Jost also will place Virginia’s apple industry in historical context and share stories about the process of collecting oral histories and making photographs for his bookShenandoah Valley Apples.
A book-signing will follow the presentation with copies of Shenandoah Valley Apples available for purchase. Apple cider from Ryan’s Orchard in Rockingham County, along with 10 – 12 different varieties of apples, will be available for tasting.
Jost earned an M.F.A. in art from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He serves as chair of Bridgewater’s art department and teaches photography and design.
In addition to Shenandoah Valley Apples, Jost is the author of Blacks Run: An American Stream and contributing photographer to The Great Valley Road of Virginia: Shenandoah Landscapes from Prehistory to the Present.
Jost’s current projects include Source and Confluence: Exploring the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, a portrait of the Chesapeake Bay’s entire 64,000 square mile watershed in panoramic photographs, Passing, Still, a meditation on the experience of landscape and place as mediated by lenses and moving vehicles, and Working Water, a historical and contemporary investigation of the ways people in Virginia use water.
The event is free and open to the public.
Bridgewater College is a private, four-year liberal arts college, located in the Central Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Founded in 1880, it was the state’s first private, coeducational college. Today, Bridgewater College is home to approximately 1,800 undergraduate students.