Just after World War II, Arthur and Nan Kellam left a life in the secretive world of California defense contractors for the quiet of Placentia Island. They spent decades together in a small cabin, their refuge from civilization. Rarely did they have visitors and rarely did they visit. They kept a life that was both close to the land and close to each other. They chose to live a life without technology and to leave behind "the burden of abundance" for the simplicity of nature, tides, and windswept island forests.
For years after their departure, their cabin remained untouched, appearing as if they had just gone off to nearby Bass Harbor for provisions. Books, letters, and teacups remained just as they had left them, a mute testament to a great and solitary love-love of each other and of the island. It was in this condition that David Graham photographed the cabin and its revealing details over the course of three years. Nicols Fox echoes Graham's photographs with well-chosen words, providing another perspective on the Kellams's life as well as a history of their life together. The result is an intriguing and revealing look at life and love.
David Graham is well-known photographer with photographs in the collections of New York's Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His work can also be regularly seen in the New York Times Magazine, Time, Newsweek, and Fortune.
Nicols Fox is the author of Spoiled: The Dangerous Truth about a Food Chain Gone Haywire and It was Probably Something You Ate. She also writes for the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, and the Boston Globe. She lives in Maine, a short distance from Placentia Island.
