New Monochrome
With a print, I’ll sit with a two-dimensional surface and see tonal variations throughout. I’ll eye lines and shapes and bring meaning to what’s constructed inside my mind.
Corrugated
Rust covers metal as a blacktop marks an arid plain, tubbing stretches over powdery caleche, mesquites surround valved pumpjacks, and a pickup passes roadside debris outside town.
Pre-2000
Film photography was a folk art. People wrote with light, and shutters drew simple moments into dark boxes.
More Art
It takes a beginning to end and ending, and in the end, there’ll be even more.
Standing at the center of it all
Stone clock towers, arched windows, and decorative ornamentation—courthouses center rural counties.
Head, Foot, and Eye Protection Required
Art galleries come and go, yet artists remain open for a lifetime. There’s no positive answer to my work because it looks like pictures of stuff and is often written off as easy, but it’s thoughts on image assemblage.
Tire Art
Tire Mart’s letter M went missing.
Orla
A tall cylindrical gas pump stands outside the small wooden building covered with flaking paint. Inside, a concession stand waits beside mailboxes at the last stop for gas, cold drinks, snacks, beer, and ice, a long way to anywhere from Orla Grocery.
San Antonio to El Paso Road
The San Antonio to El Paso Road, beginning circa 1850, was a western mail route across Texas to the Pacific. It went west along US 90 and turned north to join the Devils River at Comstock, linking forts Lancaster, Stockton, and Davis—and historic sites Casa Navarro, Landmark Inn, and Magoffin Home.
Near–middle–far
Near–middle–far is to a picture what time–manner–place is to a sentence.
Lone
Sometimes it’s a long way to get there, wherever that is. Sometimes on the plains, it’s said that the land is so flat that a person can see clear into next week, and on most days, a car will look like a dot on the horizon, and a town will appear as a spot on the map: communities near Amarillo: Umbarger, Wildorado, Washburn. Perhaps doing well is passing through.
Darkroom Rundown
In a photo darkroom, I see years of effort in every print, and in 2020, I selected pre-cut mats from a reliable source, worked with warmth, and sat with an open window, asking, what do I want to place in this?