Change of routine this week

It's been strange this week changing my routine from spending each day in my studio printing and re-printing and then working on Photoshop selecting, adjusting, cropping... my photographs of Route 66 trying to decide which ones to include in the November exhibition.

I have so much to write in my evaluation for the Arts Council - it's going to take a long time.

However, it's been good to see staff, students and the work they have produced at College while I've been away.

Selecting photographs and printing

I've been reviewing and selecting photos for an exhibition entitled "Route 66 and Beyond" to be held at Light House Media Centre, Wolverhampton, West Midlands. It opens on Thursday 22 November, which seems a long way off at the moment but will probably arrive much quicker than I'd like.


Printmaking has also been occupying a large amount of my time. I've been printing some of the photopolymer gravure plates of Route 66 images and also trying out some in monoprinting.

The artichoke plants, tree peony and other structural plants outside the studio have also been demanding my attention and I've been drawing them and trying out different ways of making prints of them.

Some photos from Santa Rosa (NM), Williams, Kingman, Gallup

Over the Sitgreaves Pass - Arizona (a route avoided by the new interstate highway)

Cool Springs Camp, located in the Black Mountains on the approach to Sitgreaves pass in 1927. The original buildings were constructed out of stones gathered along the highway. In the 1930s the chicken dinners attracted tourists and locals for 20 miles. In the 1950s when traffic moved to the new Interstate the traffic crawled to a halt. Cool Springs has only recently been opened again!

Very few cars travel past Ed's Camp these days.

Ed's Camp is located at the approach to Sitgreaves Pass from the east, one of the most feared and dreaded sections on all of Route 66. Lowell "Ed" Edgerton purchased the property in the late 1930s hoping to lure the increasing number of tourists to buy from his grocery store, gas station or souvenir shop. There was a trailer camp but motorists would pull in and sleep in their cars or tents. For $1 they could sleep on a camp bed (Am. cot) on a porch which was screened to keep insects out. Water was sold by the bucket. (R Olsen's book Route 66 Lost and Found)

You can see why this route was avoided - zig zag bends and increasing gradients through a desert landscape.

Canyon de Chelly

The shed - outside and inside

Between Kingman and Oatman, Arizona

Cholla Cactus

Jukebox in Hackberry trading post Inside HackburyShed behind Hackberry

Car at Hackberry

Hackberry petrol station

Desert flowers

Cool Springs - petrol pumps (now disused)