| HeraldNet - Snohomish County's online news source |
 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2010 12:55 am |
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Life 
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Book tells the stories of 12 Snohomish County barns Barns are as synonymous with fall as they are with Snohomish County.Symbols of a simpler time, our barns evoke nostalgic feelings. They inspire us to preserve them, remodel and refurbish them, or at least capture them before rot or the passage of time sends them cascading to the earth. Rachel Barner became so inspired in 2007. Then followed two years of on-again, off-again devotion to barns: talking to a dozen property owners, racking up more than 80 hours of research and prep work, spending hundreds of dollars out of pocket. Soon, though, Barner hopes to publish her ode to this iconic image. Barner — with research done by her stepmother, Donna Barner — expects to have the coffee table book, “Barns of Snohomish County,” available for sale by Christmas time. Twelve local barns and their accompanying parts and pieces and various artifacts will spill from the glossy pages of this soft-cover book. Barner’s goal was to capture in each picture the light and the moment and the spirit of each barn. Alongside the photos, Barner will present a barn biography of sorts for each structure from information she gathered from interviews with owners, historical and library records and the Internet. The Barners believe their book will contain historical tidbits not found anywhere else. For instance, research on one barn revealed that a wooden block and tackle used as part of a pulley system to lift hay to the loft was said to have been brought by an AWOL British seaman in about 1900 and is believed to have “HMS” for “Her Majesty’s Ship” branded onto it. Barns are repositories of history, hay and animals. They are also physical celebrations of American sustainability, Rachel Barner said. “As a county or as a nation, we have been blessed with having such plentiful food, and the barn is also iconic of that as well,” Barner said. “Farmers are really having a hard time right now … but some have chose not to sell out, to stick it through because it’s more than just their property, it’s their livelihood, and they are still here.” A Lake Stevens resident since she was 7, Barner has always been drawn to the wide-open space provided by the inside of barns. In 2007, a front-page story in The Herald inspired Barner to look closer at barns, inside and out. That inspiration came as Barner finished doing a bit of rebuilding of her own life. She was a stay-at-home mom for 10 years, raising two boys. After a divorce, Barner returned to school to pursue a passion that had been dormant for years — art. Barner got an associate degree from Everett Community College and started her own graphic and Web design business called Dragonfly Designs. She bought a camera and started a Web site on barns. The book idea grew from that. Barner, now 38, married an old sweetheart, Paul Mantikoski, this past June. Returning to her roots in Snohomish County and reclaiming her past, somehow the barn book is a culmination of all that for Barner. “Doing this book seemed to come from something more, that happened when I was growing up in Lake Stevens, seeing the fall seasons and the barns,” Barner said. “The book brought me back to a solid place, to my relationship and back to my family.” Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424; goffredo@heraldnet.com. About the book “Barns of Snohomish County” is expected to be 120 pages, 10-by-8-inch landscape format, soft cover with premium paper. Hard covers will be also available. The book should be available by Christmas at certain local outlets and through Amazon.com. The book and individual prints from the book will also be available at Rachel Barner’s Web site, www.rachelbarnerphotography.com. |
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