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Swimming Studies
Intimate with chlorinated space; weightless yet limited; closed off to taste, sound, and most this is a swimmer's state. When ten-year-old Leanne Shapton joins a swim team, she finds an affinity for its rhythms – and spends years training, making it to the Olympic trials twice.
Swimming Studies reflects on her time immersed in a world of rigour and determination, routine and competition. Vivid details of a life spent largely underwater adolescence in suburban Canada, dawn risings for morning practice, bus rides with teammates, a growing collection of swimsuits, dips in lakes and oceans. When she trades athletic pursuits for artistic ones, the metrics of moving through water endure.
In elegant, spare writing, Shapton renders swimming as a mode of experiencing time, movement, and perspective, capable of shaping our lives in every environment. The result is captivating and a modern classic of sport writing and memoir from a singular talent.
Swimming Studies reflects on her time immersed in a world of rigour and determination, routine and competition. Vivid details of a life spent largely underwater adolescence in suburban Canada, dawn risings for morning practice, bus rides with teammates, a growing collection of swimsuits, dips in lakes and oceans. When she trades athletic pursuits for artistic ones, the metrics of moving through water endure.
In elegant, spare writing, Shapton renders swimming as a mode of experiencing time, movement, and perspective, capable of shaping our lives in every environment. The result is captivating and a modern classic of sport writing and memoir from a singular talent.
328 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 2012
About the author
Leanne Shapton
36 books208 followersLeanne Shapton is an illustrator, author and publisher based in New York City. She is the co-founder, with photographer Jason Fulford, of J&L Books, an internationally-distributed not-for-profit imprint specializing in art and photography books. Shapton grew up in Mississauga, Ontario, and attended McGill Univesity and Pratt Institute. After interning at SNL, Harper's Magazine and for illustator James McMullan, she began her career at the National Post where she edited and art-directed the daily Avenue page, an award-winning double-page feature covering news and cultural trends. She went on to art direct Saturday Night, the National Post's weekly news magazine.
In 2003, Shapton published her first book of drawings, titled Toronto. From 2006 to 2008 Shapton contributed a regular travel column to Elle magazine, consisting of writing, photography and illustration. From 2008 to 2009, Shapton was the art director of The New York Times Op-Ed page.
Leanne Shapton published Was She Pretty? in November 2008 and Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry, in February 2009, with Sarah Crichton Books / Farrar, Straus & Giroux. She published The Native Trees of Canada with Drawn & Quarterly in November 2010. Shapton recently contributed a regular column to T: The New York Times Style Magazine's blog The Moment. In 2011 She posted an illustrated series titled "A Month Of..." to The New York Times opinion page website.
Currently Shapton contributes a food and culture column to Flare Magazine.
In 2012 Shapton published Swimming Studies with Blue Rider Press. It won the 2012 National Book Critic's Circle Award for autobiography, and was long listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2012.
Sunday Night Movies, a book of paintings from movies, is forthcoming from Drawn & Quarterly, fall 2013. Shapton is currently working on Women In Clothes, a collaboration with Sheila Heti and Heidi Julavits, about how women dress, with Blue Rider Press.
Source: Leanne Shapton Bio.
In 2003, Shapton published her first book of drawings, titled Toronto. From 2006 to 2008 Shapton contributed a regular travel column to Elle magazine, consisting of writing, photography and illustration. From 2008 to 2009, Shapton was the art director of The New York Times Op-Ed page.
Leanne Shapton published Was She Pretty? in November 2008 and Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry, in February 2009, with Sarah Crichton Books / Farrar, Straus & Giroux. She published The Native Trees of Canada with Drawn & Quarterly in November 2010. Shapton recently contributed a regular column to T: The New York Times Style Magazine's blog The Moment. In 2011 She posted an illustrated series titled "A Month Of..." to The New York Times opinion page website.
Currently Shapton contributes a food and culture column to Flare Magazine.
In 2012 Shapton published Swimming Studies with Blue Rider Press. It won the 2012 National Book Critic's Circle Award for autobiography, and was long listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2012.
Sunday Night Movies, a book of paintings from movies, is forthcoming from Drawn & Quarterly, fall 2013. Shapton is currently working on Women In Clothes, a collaboration with Sheila Heti and Heidi Julavits, about how women dress, with Blue Rider Press.
Source: Leanne Shapton Bio.
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