About the photographs

Texas is a huge state.  A disparate state.  Dallas resembles Corpus no more than Hamburg resembles Athens. And yet, say, "Texas", to most anyone in the world and people think cattle, cowboys, oil, and Wide Open Spaces. 

The problem is, only one part of Texas is truly home to all these things:  West Texas.  The frying pan handle of the state.  Twenty-six counties and 25,887 square miles bordered by New Mexico to the West and Oklahoma to the North and East.  The least populated, most misunderstood, least welcoming, most recognizable part of Texas.  

When I began this project, I wanted to show a different, less stereotypical side of my native land.  Then I realized that the very images I was calling "stereotypical" are actually iconic.  I realized those images belong to me, to Us – to those of us who call The Panhandle “Home”, whether we live here now or have not done for decades.  And the photographs took on a different meaning for me. 

Especially when it came time to title them. 

Many times in my life T.S. Eliot’s words, “(Come in under the shadow of this red rock.)” have echoed in my head--dropping down into the depths of Palo Duro Canyon, standing perched on the overhang of an Alibates promontory, bracing myself against the winds that roar down from the Llano Estacado every March.

Many times in my life I have heard the desolate beauty of my homeland referred to as a “Wasteland”. 

Perhaps that somehow figured into my love of Eliot’s poem from the first moment I read it so very long ago.

It, too, is vast, sprawling, uninviting.  Overwhelming.  Frightening.  Almost incomprehensible in its magnitude.  Truly breath-taking.

And it, like these photographs, has always meant Home to me.  

So, I welcome you now to my Home, to my Wasteland. 

May it change you.