# 11 SHANTY BOAT: A RIVER WAY OF LIFE
| Author : | Harlan Hubbard PAYNE HOLLOW, KY |
| Artist : | Laura Poulette BEREA, KY |
| Sponsor : | LBX |
Harlan Hubbard (1900-1988) Shanty boat: A River Way of Life
Northern Kentucky native Harlan Hubbard was educated at the New York National Academy of Design and the Art Academy of Cincinnati and was a painter, writer, musician, Thoreauvian, and adventurer. He and his wife, Anna, lived a minimalist, naturalist lifestyle. He published twelve books. His 1953 travel journal, Shantyboat: A River Way of Life, chronicles the 1944 launching of the Hubbards’ small boat onto the Ohio River and their eight-year journey to New Orleans and back. This book recounts how they gardened, foraged, gathered and made useful things to sustain them, sought the solitude of life on the river, and benefited from mutual aid and wisdom of people they met on the banks and streams along the way.
Laura Poulette:
BOOKBENCHESLEX.ORG
I’ve long admired the lives and works of Harlan and Anna Hubbard. Most of my work has been inspired by the plants of Kentucky’s woods and meadows; I paint seasonal, botanical watercolors. On the Book Bench, I interpreted Harlan’s memoir, Shanty Boat, to celebrate the value of an intentional, handmade life. Laura Poulette lives in the hills outside of Berea, Ky.