“Overview” by Schlafmann, Dibble and Schefter
The series of five books, chronic freedom, dirt, light, 3 books and Big Drug Factory – Unfound, by Scott Holmquist, represent a single work and unified attempt to survey, collect and interrogate traces of the histories comprising the back-to-the-land and marijuana production worlds as they evolved in Southern Humboldt County, California, from the late 1960s through 2010.
There are ten full sets of the five.
Delivering the entire series to intended readers began after December 2010 when a chronic freedom book was presented to each of the families of the three young men whose deaths and stories comprise its first chapters.
This act led to the next steps in bringing the books to its public: the placement of full series with individuals in Southern Humboldt and related circles and, beginning in January 2011, showing the series within structured presentations to groups at private settings, starting in the homes of individuals who had acquired the series, but also at homes and private spaces throughout the community.
Beyond the books’ intended readers, the author has sought the placement of the series and copies of series’ books in editions larger than ten with collecting and research institutions.
Collections: Getty Museum – Los Angeles; Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley (gift of James Shaw); Rare Books and Special Collections, U.S. Library of Congress; Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts, Wits Art Museum – South Africa; Special Collections, Humboldt State University – California; UCLA’s Louis M. Darling Library; Don E. Wirtschafter Collection.