T. D. MOTLEY is a Texas painter and academic. Born in Beaumont, he's been drawing since age three. Motley is Professor Emeritus of Art and Art History at Dallas College. His drawings and paintings have been shown in many national exhibits and are included in numerous U.S. and Texas collections. Motley has lectured at the Dallas Museum of Art, the Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum, Austin, TX, the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. He has published several art museum catalogs, art periodical critiques and reviews, and National Endowment for Humanities research papers on art and literature of the Greeks and Romans. He is a contributing author for Eutopia and ArtSpiel and has written essays about mid-century modern Texas artists for DB/Zumbeispiel and the Grace Museum, Abilene. Motley has received Fulbright Grants to Belgium, the Netherlands, and the UK. He and artist wife Rebecca, who live in Fort Worth, marketed organic, heirloom herbs and produce to North Texas chefs for years.

"Thomas Motley's book about farming on a small scale turns the challenges of growing clean food into heroic adventure. Eternal truths about the way the Sacred Soil reveals itself to a farmer as one discovers Growth come shining through with the infinitely variegated subtle colors of flowers, fruits, roots, shoots, leaves, nuts, seeds and pods. In one scene, in which he describes a special kind of cucumber that puzzles and delights his customers at the local farmer's market, Motley frames the beauty of heritage seeds.

This book underscores the tragedy of senseless genetic modification even as Motley the Farmer/Artisan communicates the pure joy of participation in the natural, mystical progression of human interaction with the Earth. It's the Ballad of the Green Man set to a Waltz Across Texas!"--Michael Martin Murphey, Wandering Western Balladeer