Living The Legend

If you could choose how you die how would you go? "I'd be 95 years old and catch a stray bullet from a jealous husband while I's crawlin' out a bathroom window." The people and landscape of the American West translate directly into story. By just being they write their own cattle brand of haiku. And every time you think it all fits too neatly into cliche´ a priceless barstool quote or another snow-blanketed sight on the mountain breaks any tired notion open to possibility that pours out all the way to the Pacific. This place lives up to its legend.

Ancient Graffiti

"If it's less than a hundred years old we call it graffiti, if it's more than a hundred years old we call it cave art," the lanky Hueco Tanks, Texas park service guide explained pointing at the figures and writing with his wooden walking stick. The cave paintings carry weight either way. They evidence our inherent need to make markings on surfaces, to make art. The Mesoamerican inhabitants who originally made these marks wanted to communicate to other travelers who would visit this place that it and they had significance. It must have made them feel important. In a world where mastodons and giant 6000 pound buffalo 12' at the shoulder roamed they must have felt pretty small.

I saw an image recently of the earth in the galaxy photographed from 4 billion miles away by the Galileo. After seeing that image I know the drive the Mesoamerican Indians must have felt to say 'we were here'. In this culture of finance and science I live in it's easy to wonder about the significance of being a photographer, an artist. These paintings give my profession historical perspective more than anything I've seen in person. If I can say what I need to with conviction, it is an important place to hold. I will look at the work I hang on my walls and the work of other artists differently now.

Insecurity Deserted

In West Texas these broad planes of sunset yellow and orange burn warnings into the dry eyes of every creature that watches the show. Spikes stick out of every stalk and leaf warding off the curious. Looking for an angle I knelt into a prickly pear cactus that left a patch of slivers in my leg. Dry humor. With all of its armor this defensive environment seems full of insecurity, of worry that I wish I could relieve. The cracked, rocky ground rolls out long and fast across the arms of these flat expanses. Everything is extreme : first the quiet, then the wind, then the temperatures. Even the colors glow unusually bright. But waiting for its rainy day this desert lives as evidence of survival, free of conspicuous consumption; a model of sustainability in hard times. It doesn't welcome us but we can learn from this place.