Marshall author: New book is 'super fun little time capsule of me and my daughter at home'

MARSHALL - For many people, COVID allowed them to freshly cultivate or dig deeper into a hobby or activity to make time move a little faster.

For Marshall author/photographer Sarah Jones Decker, the new hobby allowed her to turn the newfound interest into a sentimental relic of the meaningful experiences she shared with her family during the unpredictable period.

Jones Decker published her newest book, "Tiny Ridge," in November. The title “Tiny Ridge,” inspired by Piney Ridge Drive that runs through her property, reflects the subject matter of the book: tiny figurines strategically placed throughout the author's farm.

"I only got into it because I was stuck at home during the pandemic and wanted to work on something, and I started photographing our farm in Marshall," Jones Decker said. "I think we all kind of had to turn our lens towards ourselves or closer to home during that time. For a lot of us, our creativity found different outlets."

She and her husband, Morgan, and the couple's 5-year-old daughter, Josephine, live on their 10-acre Marshall farm, and run a business, Root Bottom Farm, a working farm dedicated to a diverse, chemical free and organic food system that grows annual and perennial vegetables, greens, root crops, microgreens, berries and award-winning low-sugar jams, according to its website.

Jones Decker said she collected the figurines by displacing them from HO Scale model train sets.

"I have like a backpack full of them. I found them on Etsy, Ebay, and all kinds of places," Jones Decker said. "I got deep into the world of model trains. It's a world. For some reason, the HO Scale works the best with making vegetables look giant."

According to the author, all the images were shot during one year on the farm.

"The book is organized as a year on the farm, and kind of the idea of the little residents that live there with us," the author said.

Despite what readers may think, all the shots were unedited. After all, Jones Decker holds a MFA in photography from Savannah College of Art and Design.

"I did not use any Photshop. It's all balancing," the author said. "So, if you see those little guys on something, I may have spent 20 minutes setting it up.

"I lost a ninja in the lettuce. I never found it."

"Tiny Ridge" is Jones Decker's third book in as many years. In 2021, she published "The Ridges of Madison County, N.C.," which spotlights section-hiking throughout four sections of Madison County.

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Her first book, "The Appalachian Trail: Backcountry Shelters, Lean-tos, and Huts" was published in April 2020.

According to the author, in many ways, "Tiny Ridge" is a departure from the first two books, and uses a more stripped down approach, as the book has no words.

""I feel like I have lots of projects ahead of me. I'm always going to be doing something and writing something," Jones Decker said. "So this is just this fun project. I've got two technical books. This is like, just joy.

"My grandfather looked at it and said, 'You really should write a story for each picture. I always remembered as a kid that I loved the books that didn't have writing. Someone asked me if this was a kids book, and I have definitely sold it mostly to adults. I would say it's an 'any age' book, because we all have imaginations. I like the idea of people making up their own stories. I don't want to tell you my story. I'd rather you have fun with your own imagination."

Despite its lack of words though, the book is Jones Decker's most intimate and personal project yet.

"I did a lot of the project with my daughter," Jones Decker said. "We came up with this story that these little people also live on our property, and we never see them, but they're out there working and farming. It's so fun. She would come up with ideas. We would talk about it at dinner. We would save praying mantis sacs and then release them in the greenhouse for our insect armies.

"A lot of it, the idea came from what the figurine was doing, for example the asparagus logger. Then, sometimes it came down to basic color theory, and which outfit would look the best with it. I want them to be visually interesting."

The book became a pet project for the whole family, as Morgan Decker became increasingly invested in the tiny residents, too.

"My husband would wake up and say, 'Hey, today's the day. You have to go shoot the raspberries,'" Jones Decker said. "He woke up one morning and was like, 'You have to paint the tomatoes,' and then we went into the greenhouse and did it."

Jones Decker said one of her personal favorite photographs is "Asparagus Logger."

"Josephine held an umbrella so I would have better diffused light," she said. "That's probably one of the only things I used was this cheap umbrella that I carried. Sometimes, I would set up the umbrella nd then just shoot under the umbrella. But besides that, I wasn't using lights. It's all natural light. That's why I feels like it feels so real and crisp."

According to the author, with "Tiny Ridge," she will always be able to look back on the experiences she shared with her daughter and husband through this nostalgic lens.

"I don't think I'm going to do this forever, but this is a super fun little time capsule of my daughter and I being stuck at home," Jones Decker said.

Signed copies of Decker's books and prints from "Tiny Ridge" are available on her website sarahjonesdecker.com and at the Madison County Arts Council Holiday Sale in Marshall through the end of December.

The book is available at Artisun Gallery and Cafe, located at 16 S. Andrews Ave. in Hot Springs.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Sarah Jones Decker's new book Tiny Ridge explores world of tiny figures