Ossabaw Evocations of an Island Author:Jack Leigh, Kilgo James, Campbell Alan, James Kilgo, Alan Campbell A wild paradise of woodlands, beaches, and tidal marshes off the Georgia coast, Ossabaw Island is a heritage preserve that will forever remain undeveloped. Visitors rarely leave untouched by its tranquillity and mystery. Many are struck by the sense of solitude it impartseven though Ossabaw lies just twenty miles south of Savannah. The bo... more »oks three creators have powerful connections to Ossabaw: Jack Leighs photography and James Kilgos nature writing have led them there, while Alan Campbell has taken part in the artists retreat known as the Ossabaw Island Project. This retreat has been a source of inspiration and rejuvenation for such attendees as the writer Annie Dillard, architect Robert Venturi, composer Samuel Barber, and sculptor Ann Truitt. Leighs black-and-white photographs, Campbells watercolor and oil paintings, and Kilgos essay offer three highly individual interpretations of a similar experiencethat of deep personal connection with Ossabaws timelessness and beauty. In "Place of the Black Drink Tree" Kilgos meditations on the yaupon holly tea used ritually by Ossabaws aboriginal inhabitants lead to other thoughts about the islands natural and human history. Leigh and Campbell's images depict scenes of the contemporary Ossabaw that evoke a landscape as it may have appeared to its Native American, and even its earliest European, inhabitants: deserted beaches strewn with massive pieces of driftwood, palm trees tilting toward the waters edge, an alligator lounging on the bank of a sandy creek, a flock of seabirds winging across a marsh.« less