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| Molen Reef - Snake |
I am taken back in time on each day I spend looking for and finding the indigenous petroglyphs in the state I live in. I live in Phoenix, Arizona and within a 10 minute drive is the S'edav Va'aki Museum. A little further down the road is Tempe Butte and the petroglyphs there. South Mountain is 20 minutes away and I have begun to find and photograph the rock art of Piedras Grande and the Desert Classic Trail. There are many rock art sites within South Mountain, the largest municipal park in the United States.
I often find myself wondering about the people that created the stone pictures. Looking out over Phoenix, one of the largest cities of America, the city disappears to be replaced by desert. I see settlements here and there connected by hand dug canals and green fields of squash, beans and corn. I look over and there is a Hohokam man tapping out a picture on a desert varnished rock. His skin is tan and his long black hair covers his shoulders and back. He turns and looks at me and smiles…
Hunting down art in rock is a passion. Even the most basic stick figure man or spiral is important to me. There are more hunters like myself. Our stories are similar but where I seem to differ is the way I look at rock art. All of it is important. The Petrified National Forest, a three hour drive Northeast is an area that was once inhabited hundreds, a thousand and more years ago. There are ancient Pueblos there and subsequent rock art or Tapamveni as the Hopi call it is often quite detailed and complex.
I’m learning about the indigenous peoples of the desert Southwest. Americans, their ancestry are from this area of our country. The migration of the different people, where they lived, where they moved to over the course of time, trying to understand where the modern descendants are.
I’m 65 and I have my own family tree that I can trace back a hundred years, about four generations ago but I’m not so interested in my own history. The politics of America and how it came to be has crushed the interest from investigating my own lineage. My people forced the people that lived here for thousands of years away. We forced them on to reservations, we interred their children forcing them to assimilate into our way of life. The road just North of my home, Indian School road is my everyday stark reminder.
I am a photographer, an older gentleman in the last part of my life living in the Southwest. I enjoy photographing the rock art and my travels are an escape from the modern contrivance of current times living in America. My interest in the indigenous peoples of this land reminds me of how young the people and ways of America is. We have not stood the test of time like the stone art has.
What you will find on this page is the work that I do, photographs, notes and remembrances.
Thank you for visiting.
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