BOOKS

Book cover for Lighthouses of the Great Lakes

Lighthouses of the Great Lakes: An Architect's Sketchbook

Illustrated with more than 500 sketches, drawings, maps, and diagrams, this book takes you on road trips around the Great Lakes. It’s the story of lighthouse building on the lakes and the lighthouse establishment plus descriptions of how lighthouses and their components work as well as the story of other players like keepers and tenders.

Praise for Lighthouses of the Great Lakes

I don’t recall anything like this book. It’s a thoroughly original and delightful combination of whimsical sketchbook, personal journal, and pertinent history highlights. This is the perfect coffee table book. It can be picked up and opened to any page at random, resulting in instant enchantment. I have no doubt that it will create far-reaching ripples to inspire future lighthouse preservationists, historians, and sketchers.

—Jeremy D’Entremont, Historian, United States Lighthouse Society

Lammers invites the reader to accompany him on a journey of discovery as he travels around the Great Lakes sketching its many lighthouses and sharing the information he has gathered about their past and present…lighthouses remain as magnets to travelers drawn to their often scenic locations and interested in the maritime heritage of the Great Lakes. Enjoy the journey!

—Wayne S. Sapulski, USCG Licensed First Class Pilot—Great Lakes (Ret.) Historian, Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association.
Author and Photographer: Great Lakes Lighthouses: American and Canadian Lighthouses of Lake Michigan: Past and Present

This charming book is a personal tribute to Great Lakes lighthouses. Author, architect, and artist, Jim Lammers gives us more than just the drawings he sketched while on his journey around the lakes. He gives us a history lesson as well. The author’s sojourn is a roadmap for lighthouse afficionados. Lammers puts you in the car with him.

—Sherry Nelson, Board Member, Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association

If you love the Great Lakes and lighthouses, this is the book for you. Lammers is an entertaining guide for this illuminating adventure, combining fascinating history and personal vignettes with wonderful sketches of the noble beacons he encounters along the way. Don’t be surprised if, after reading this book, you want to hop into your car to take your own lighthouse tour.

—Eric Jay Dolin, author of Brilliant Beacons: The History of the American Lighthouse

In a book like this, with drawings, together with views and thoughts from an engaged artist, it moves more into poetry and should be read as such. And you surely need also this kind of approach to lighthouses if you love them.

— Magnus Rietz, Pharologist, Author and Photographer

Book cover for Capture the Moment

Capture the Moment: An Architect’s Guide to Travel Sketching

With sketches form around the world, this book takes you on a journey starting with the definition of sketching from observation and an introduction to right-brain drawing. You get a discussion of black and white and color sketching with a focus on colored pencil as an easy-to-use medium. Perspective drawing is demystified and you then take side trips to understand shade and shadow, reflections, landscapes, streetscapes, sky and skyline. This book presents the fundamentals of rapid colored pencil sketching to “capture the moment” for designers and for travelers who have always wanted to draw the notable places they visit.

Praise for Capture the Moment

A book that reflects the faster pace of modern life. As its title conveys, he shows us how to “Capture the Moment” in quick sketches that depict the places we visit.

—Thomas Fisher, Director, Minnesota Design Center, College of Design, University of Minnesota

Lammers gets to the very heart of why we sketch—to honor the spirit of the moment and capture the essence of a building or scene.

—Candace Rose Rardon, Moment Sketchers: Connecting the World through Art

Explanations and diagrams in the book are precise and accurate to help readers capture the emotional feeling of a place that only a sketch can provide.

—Dewey Thorbeck, FAIA, Fellow, American Academy in Rome

Travelers of all skill levels will find the sketches, tips and exercises in this wonderful book inviting and deeply rewarding—even those who’ve never owned a set of colored pencils.

—Chris Hudson, Hon. AIAMN, Editor, Architecture MN

Throughout his book, Jim’s spirit of sharing, enthusiasm for teaching and promotion of deep observation will lead many sketchers to say “My god, I’ve come a long way!”

—Amber Sausen, AIA, President 2017-2020, Urban Sketchers

Book cover for Barns of the St. Croix River Valley

Barns of the St. Croix Valley: An Architect's Sketchbook

Illustrated with 200 barn sketches, diagrams, and maps, Barns of the St Croix Valley: An Architect’s Sketchbook takes you on a journey through the St Croix River Valley. With research from more than 40 sources, the colorful history of the St Croix Valley is unlocked. The book grounds you in the geography, geology, and biology of the region and introduces you to the Dakota and Ojibwe peoples, European explorers, fur traders, loggers, the settlers that followed them, and the history of farming in the Valley. It honors regional diversity and architectural expression through the vernacular architecture of a single type of building—the barn.

Praise for Barns of the St. Croix Valley

Lammers’ book proclaims rural and agricultural heritage in a way that photographs of the barns would not express. He has done extensive research and writes about the development of barns along with many accessory structures. No book illustrates the power of sketching better than this one.

—Dewey Thorbeck, Professor and Founder, Center for Rural Design, University of Minnesota

This book celebrates the diversity and history of the St Croix River Valley from the geologic beginnings of our landscape to the history of it peoples to the distinctive architecture of its barns. The beautifully rendered sketches capture the personalities of not only the structures, but also the landscapes in which they are situated and the peoples who built them. A drive through the Valley will now be even more filled with stories thanks to Jim’s art and architectural eye.

—Dr. Gwen Westerman, Minnesota Poet Laureate, Professor, Minnesota State University—Mankato

The barns found in the St Croix Valley are a topic near and dear to my heart. These iconic structures are no longer used by farmers who made their living by milking cows and baling hay. The beautiful drawings of barns in this book will be one of the reminders of these barns from a former era.

—Lin Cornelius Strong, Director, Chisago County Historical Society

Jim sketches the actual barn he is talking about and then tells the story of the origin of the barn style, the reason it was built the way it was built, and the people that built the barns.

—William Breuntrup, President, Friends of Minnesota Barns

Book cover for Barn Coloring Book

Barn Coloring Book

Barns stand as a testament to a bygone era. To the way farming used to be. On working farms old barns are put to use, but not as originally intended, which was for storing hay in the haymow and cows or cattle and young stock below. Many return to earth, little by little, until one day the barn you’ve been driving by is now flat, marked only by a silo.

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