Vegas Gypsy

When I tell people I lived in Vegas for seven years, their minds instantly flash to some sort of image created by the people who brought you casinos, rather than an up and coming downtown, an indie music scene, an ever growing arts community, which finally is getting its due with support from Zappos and even a few downtown casinos. Today we found one of the greatest new addition to the downtown arts district: Gypsy Caravan. A full sized stuffed lion (with a disclaimer he died of natural causes), circus signs, dinosaur statues, a fully stocked vintage boot room, and some 60s hanging lights we were dying over. Everywhere I turned, fabulous! The endearing photos were in the entry, and I fell in loooove with these dancing kids.

Gypsy Soul

I get just a few miles down the road and I begin to feel the freedom I've missed so much, stuck in a small farm town. Everything's exciting, a grocery store with pomegranates, mangos and butternut squash, and already, things are looking up.

I hang all my problems on objects and buildings: trees, cows, farmhouses, I hang fear, anxiety, insecurity and anything that wants to creep into my mind and ask me to dwell. As soon as I pass that object or animal, the problem linked to it fades into the rearview mirror. Once they've dissolved into the past, I'm free to fall in love with interstates, motel signs, old vehicles left to rust and become a marker on a desolate highway. The people who regularly drive by here know exactly how many minutes from this old Ford their turn off is, and without recognizing the connection, start physically readjusting for the turn or slowing for a stop ahead.



I've heard many artists reflect that some of their best thinking is done in the car, and i feel like 'people like us,' people with antennae on their heads, the empaths, the sensitive and introspective, pick up too many crossed messages when we sit still; the movement lets us flow through energy, rather than getting someone's weird juju stuck on us.

A psychic once told me that Vegas has an energy all its own... Las Vegas literally means, 'the meadows,' and it's a concave valley, a bowl with mountains all the way around. She said the energy swirls here, and all the hopes they bring in on one plane after another, all the sad, exhausted hangover feelings travel back out. It's interesting, and while I'm still fresh here from traveling, I'm making an effort to observe these feelings and see how they're unique from the relaxed way I feel in Nebraska.  And I'm making photographs... hundreds already, and I can't wait to download and show you these things I'm unable to put into words. Sometimes pointing the lens at something, stopping, breathing, observing and reaching out through it to grab at the feelings that don't fit into words.

Boobies and Buses, down by the river and across the country

The SNL sketch where Matt Foley (Chris Farley) does his "living in a van down by the river" bit is one of the only sketches in history that makes me roll on the floor laughing every time I see it. His exuberance makes it timeless. I feel similarly exuberant about any living space wholly unique: converted school buses (above), converted schoolhouses, churches, treehouses, you name it. This bus even has a wood burning stove, making it perfect for frosty nights down by the river.

Wish me well, my friends, this is my final post before I get my boobies checked out (there seems to be a small lump) and with the masterminded planning of a genius, I leave right after the exam to drive 26 hours to Las Vegas for 14 scheduled photo shoots in 4 days. I'll be an exhausted bugger, but I fully intend to post some images from the trip (I'm driving through Colorado and the magical part of Utah) and some images from the shoot: it's a cowboy-kitsch-bohemian-wanderer theme, with costumes, props, and some lovely friends.