American Gothic Fine Art Series Hide Description <h5>Buena Vista, CO</h5> The road to Santa Fe, Highway 24, from Leadville, CO. The quintessential open road and big sky of the southwestern United Sates. <h5>Ashcroft, CO</h5> One of the original cabins in the ghost town of Ashcroft, built in 1880. This cabin once held the largest library collection in the state of Colorado. It belonged to miner, lawyer, and book loving Irishman Jack Leahy (1879-1939) considered the “mayor of Ashcroft”, the first and last resident of this silver mining town. <h5>Mather, CO</h5> Dorito’s owner, Eugenia Skidmore, says “Desert burros are feisty dudes and coyotes do not mess with them. Dorito likes to chew wood, that’s why we put a fence around the pear tree.” I threw an apple under the tree to get Dorito into position for the photograph. <h5>Carbondale, CO</h5> An open air hay shed for feeding and sheltering livestock. Mt. Sopris looms in the distance, the largest mountain from base to top in Colorado and perhaps the most striking. <h5>Redstone, CO</h5> The spectral light of an autumn sun illuminating a bare tree. <h5>Shafter, Texas</h5> Sunrise at the graveyard in the ghost town of Shafter, Texas. Got coffee? <h5>Arches National Park, UT</h5> A Charlton Heston moment in stone, September 20, 1989, during the fall equinox. A formation known as Sheep Rock, a football field away, is casting an enormous shadow onto Courthouse Tower in Arches Nat’l Park, UT. I wondered if the ancient American Indians ever witnessed this, and if so, did they have a name or a myth about it. <h5>Marble, CO</h5> Marble for the pillars of the Lincoln Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was mined from this mountain interior. Known as “Colorado Yule”, some of the finest marble in the western hemisphere was mined and milled in the nearby town of Marble, Colorado. A disastrous snow avalanche closed the mine in the 1930’s and it remained off limits for almost 50 years. In 1989, still closed, I snuck in to take this picture using a blue filter on a 4X5 camera. <h5>Monticello, NM</h5> Located in the heart of the ancient Apache nation, the remote town of Monticello, New Mexico, has a population of 300 souls. The town is a relic of New Deal America and benefited from FDR’s rural electrification and educational programs. That’s a 1939 De Soto, built specifically for mid-level bank managers, I’m told after some research at the San Diego Automobile Museum. The tales that car could tell! <h5>Carbondale, CO</h5> Bales happen. Tootsie roll style. <h5>Crawford, CO</h5> The upper floor of a big old barn in Crawford, Colorado, with a view towards Needle Rock. I’d received permission from the farmer’s wife to explore the barn but when the boss got back from his errand he didn’t think that was such a great idea. After some coaxing, and the promise of an autographed print, I stayed on. <h5>Missouri Heights, CO</h5> Camera is Latin for <em>room</em>. <h5>Needles, CA</h5> This is what can happen when you mix speed, alcohol, and an El Camino full of teenagers racing on a narrow desert road that has severe dips and gullies. Note to self: the gas tank is on the bottom of a Chevy El Camino. Thankfully no one was injured. Polaroids were handed out to the inebriants in return for everyone moving away from the car “for the sake of the photo”. I left before the police arrived. I don’t think the driver passed his DUI test! <h5>Shafter, Texas</h5> I was in hurry up mode to take this picture when an old man came over to say hello. He said “I’m not sure you’ll be able to get out of here tonight because of the flash flood.” I said “What flash flood?” Sure enough, as I exited the graveyard, what was once a dry riverbed on the drive up to the cemetery was now a raging torrent of water and debris carousing at breathtaking speed. Impassable. So camping on the hilltop cemetery would be the only option that night. Not a problem. I slept well. <h5>Taos, NM</h5> Martinez Hacienda in Taos, New Mexico is one of the earliest historic ranches in that area, now a museum. I rented the deer skull from a roadside vendor and hung it on a hook. Reminds me of a Georgia O’Keefe painting. Images of the American West, 1989-2004 View Gallery