Current Publications
Find our most recent publication, Rounding the Circle: The Legacy of Mary and Al Shands, as well as the 2014 Hatje Cantz publication Great Meadows: The Making of Here, and two collections of essays written by the late Rev. Alfred “Al” Shands.
Rounding the Circle: The Legacy of Mary and Al Shands (2024)
Price: $50
A celebration of the contemporary art collection that Mary and Al Shands built at Great Meadows, their estate in Crestwood, Kentucky, and their generous philanthropy that has enriched the state and its artist community through the creation of the Great Meadows Foundation. This richly illustrated clothbound volume includes contributions from a dozen artists—many known internationally—impacted by the couple, including some who created on-site commissions at Great Meadows, others Al met on his travels, and still others who received grants from the foundation that he established.
With essays by Peter Morrin, Julien Robson, Anna Blake, John Yau, and Natalie Weis, the book includes hundreds of full-color photographs of the house, collection, sculpture preserve, 2023 exhibitions at the Speed Art Museum and KMAC Museum, as well as candid moments of Al visiting with artists and traveling around the world.
Artists featured in the book include: Kiah Celeste, Sandra Charles, Petah Coyne, Tony Cragg, Francesa DiMattio, Olafur Eliasson, Adrian Esparza, Wayne Ferguson, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Zaha Hadid, Alex Hartley, Anish Kapoor, Nina Katchadourian, Mel Kendrick, Sol LeWitt, Maya Lin, Elizabeth Murray, Ernesto Neto, Odili Donald Odita, Judy Pfaff, Jaume Plensa, Ken Price, Eva Rothschild, Ursula Von Rydingsvard, Susana Solano, Vian Sora, Monika Sosnowska, Summer Wheat, Peter Williams, and Betty Woodman.
Great Meadows: The Making of Here (2014)
Price: $300
This handsome slipcovered hardback edition, published by Hatje Cantz, explores the home of Episcopal priest and contemporary art collector Al Shands, designed by architect David Morton and completed in 1988. Over 216 pages, including lavish fold-out panels and elegant “Bible paper” inset texts, the book highlights the building of the home and the Shands’ growing collection, including site-specific commissions by Petah Coyne, Sol LeWitt, Maya Lin, Stephen Vitiello and Betty Woodman.
Includes essays by Peter Morrin, Julien Robson, John Yau; texts by Glenn Adamson, Petah Coyne, Maya Lin, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Alyson Shotz, Stephen Vitiello, and Betty Woodman; and an interview between Al Shands and Alice Gray Stites.
Rounding the Circle (2013)
Price: $20
This inspiring collection of 65 essays, selected from over 400 by former Courier-Journal Book and Opinion Page Editor Keith Runyon, offers a decade’s worth of wisdom and insights shared by Rev. Alfred R. Shands III with members of his “moving parish”—St. Clements “House Church” in Louisville, Kentucky. In these essays, Shands shares wisdom, observations and insights about faith, the arts, politics, current events and many other subjects, and reflects on the many challenges and wonders—both large and small, globally and in our own backyard—that the world offers. His rich and eclectic readings provide us “markers along the path” as we journey along life’s circular path to our personal center. By Alfred R. Shands, edited by Keith L. Runyon.
Border Crossing: Connecting the Secular and the Sacred (200o)
Price: $20
Copy: Al Shands had just retired after fifteen years as vicar of St. John’s Chapel, a summer congregation in Harbor Springs, Michigan, where he and Mary liked to vacation, when he assembled this collection of brief essays. Originally shared in a weekly newsletter he sent out to his “House Church” membership, these conversational writings combine Al’s encounters with art, literature, music, theatre, and travels with his own spiritual musings and thoughts about contemporary social and political issues. This collection includes 93 essays written from 1985 - 1999, along with a preface by The Very Rev. Alan William Jones, former Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.