Fragments: a Family Backstory

I made a handful of images in the late 1950s as a pre-teen with my Mother’s help. These were the foundation of Fragments of Spirit. Decades of visits and re-visits at frequent, but irregular intervals to Northern New Mexico. The Taos Pueblo photographs accrued in various formats, films and pixels. The simple historic potential of the unprinted aggregate burst with epiphany in 2004; however, despite the urgency I felt, it has took many years to find, assemble, write, organize, pair with poetry, rewrite, edit. It is important to me to set forth in as clear and entrancing language as possible my philosophy, approach, spirit and process along the way. In fact the story told is as much about my spirit, as it is about the spirit of Taos Pueblo and the environs. 

Career, even if a professional arts career, gets in the way. You don’t get rich in dollars publishing a monograph of your own work, but the satisfaction outweighs almost everything.How to start, at least until recently, has been too daunting, too elitist, and too expensive to contemplate past the dream sequence. I’ve always been a book maker, for clients, that is, when the audience being just a few lucky family members.

It took two years, after I finally got serious about the process and determined I should learn start to finish how to get this done without breaking the artist’s typically slender bank account. There have been so many steps and interesting side bars Now that I know a lot about it, I work to be of service to others intent on a book as lasting legacy.

Famous last words! It’s taken more images, It has taken much study, interviewing storied professionals, repeated text and image editing, planning PR—not to mention vetting and learning to work with an overseas printer.