Ghost Town – Artist Alley Studio

Ghost Towns Offer Unlimited Creative Opportunities For The Artist and Photographer

VISITING A GHOST TOWN CAN INSPIRE YET YOU MUST SHOW RESPECT

I have always had a fascination with ghost towns. I have a deep desire to know their story. How was the town born? What was it like in it’s prime? What caused it to die? And why does it’s ghost linger on long after the town is gone?

As an artist my eye sees beyond the decay. I see the remaining color, the shapes and the textures. Oh those textures! I smell the scents of the town; secret deep scents that still linger long after the last barber gave his last shave. Long after the last Thanksgiving Turkey was cooked. Those scents linger within the rotting wood and crumbling stone. But most importantly I hear the stories the town has to tell and as I listen I reach out my hand and capture those stories.

Sometimes I do it with photography, sometimes with the written word and sometimes with paint but always with the respect that the town earned and deserves. I love ghost towns and I really can’t say why beyond the artistic opportunity that they afford me. Maybe there is something deeper in my psyche that knows that long after I have become a ghost these “Villages of the Lost”, though ghosts themselves, will still be visible to generations to come.

THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT GHOST TOWNS

If you are artistically drawn to visit and capture the stories of ghost towns there are a few important things and rules that should be observed. First and foremost is remember; though it may be a ghost town there may still be living people that call it home. Also though a property may be abandoned does not mean that it is unowned. Do not intrude or trespass! Let’s examine Ghost Towns and how you can show proper respect.

VILLAGES OF THE LOST

A “Ghost Town” is any community that is either abandoned, whose main industry that kept the town vital has ceased to exist or whose population and community infrastructure has declined to a level that recovery into a thriving community is highly improbable. There are three types of Ghost Towns: completely deserted ghost towns; towns with a minimal population; and still-thriving towns.

Philip Varney, the author of several popular Ghost Town books defines what to look for in Ghost Town:

Scattered rubble or site where nature has reclaimed the land
Roofless buildings or partially demolished buildings
Boarded up or abandoned buildings, no population
A community with many abandoned buildings and a small population of residents
Historic community or town, functional, but much smaller than in its boom years
A restored town, state park, or replica of an old town, community or fort

GHOST TOWN CODE OF ETHICS:
The following partially taken and modified by Kathy Weiser/Legends of America from Gary Speck’s Ghost Town Ethics, Ghost Town USA

I WILL NOT
1. Destroy, damage or deface any buildings or other structures.
2. Disturb any structures that are locked or appear to be occupied.
3. Remove anything from the site other than obvious trash such as candy wrappers, soft drink cans, etc.
4. Enter a site that is posted as “No Trespassing” without permission.
5. Take in a metal detector without the permission of the owner. These are often the badge of a vandal to local residents.

I WILL
1. Observe all rules and regulations be they local, state, or national.
2. Camp and make fires only in designated safe locations.
3. Leave the land and vegetation as it is.
4. Fill all holes or excavations I make.
5. Remove and properly dispose of any trash I find, and will not litter.
6. Respect the rights and property of landowners, leave gates as found, and obey all posted signs.
7. Appreciate and protect this nation’s ghost towns and the heritage they represent.
8. Always conduct myself in a manner that is courteous and polite, and always show consideration for others.

Visiting Ghost Towns can always be fun and educational as long as they and the people that have called and may still call them home are respected.

I hope this has given you some inspiration to explore and artistically capture a ghost town or abandoned structure near you. I would love to see your creations. Please join our Facebook Group The Artist Life Creations and share your art and stories.

YESO

I rolled down the endless highway into the bright New Mexico day. Clouds hung low in the blue morning sky like poly fiber torn from an over stuffed pillow. As I rolled along I knew that the soft clouds could gather into a storm, I watched the sky with wary eye.

Mile after mile passed beneath my wheels as I headed east along Highway 60 towards Ft. Sumner. I watched the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe tracks running along side the road, rail keeping pace with asphalt.

The clouds had congealed into a soft gray mass and I prayed that if they opened it would be a quick desert rain and not a deluge of biblical proportions.

I was thinking about the last 22 miles I had to travel to our destination when I topped a rise in the highway and there it was; A Ghost Town!

I grabbed brake, instinctively, pulling onto the dusty shoulder in front of, what was once, the dead towns post office. I did not have to wonder if I should stop, I knew the answer. My artist eyes had seen this treasure and I knew Yeso, New Mexico was mine for the taking.

Yeso means “gypsum” in Spanish; the town was established in 1906, when the AT&SF RR came to the area, and it became a trading center for ranchers (and the very few farmers) in the area.

Its post office began operations in 1909, and is now the towns only business servicing the nearby ranch’s from a small metal building. The postmaster lives behind the small office in a 5th wheel trailer.

Yeso was spelled Yesso during the years 1912-1913, for unknown reasons. When it became clear that the land was not suited for farming, and only useful for sheepherding and cattle grazing, many of the original settlers moved away. Only a hand full of people still call Yeso home. On this day I was Yeso’s only tourist.

Yeso is a true ghost town in every sense of the word. It’s abandoned red adobe brick buildings are slowly returning to the earth from which they arose.

Open doorways beckon you into passages dimly lit by the ambient light of the desert sky. Sage and course grass cover areas of collapsed flooring like a rolling carpet of dusty green and dark sienna. Empty windows stare out at the world while tumble weed residents roll along long forgotten sidewalks.

Here and there you can hear the residents of this once thriving town talking to each other. The desert finch warns the curious Kangaroo rat that the red tail hawk is nearby while the crows gossip about what the diamondback did last evening. If you listen even closer you can still hear echo’s of the human voices that once filled the vacant structure’s.

I moved around the town, photo after photo capturing what one day would be no more than a dusty pile along a busy road. Foundations that served as planters for prickly pear and cholla cactus today would tomorrow be nothing more than a mound from which creosote arose.

My camera’s shutters click, click, click was answered by the whistling wind that played through missing roofs and broken rafters. I speculated on belongings left behind and what the town must have been like when it was populated with humans instead of desert willows.

I returned to the highway and continued on towards Ft. Sumner. The thick gray clouds were started to thin out as I rolled on. I looked in my rearview mirror one more time for a final look at Yeso. The desert ghost town disappeared from my view as it would one day disappear from the world. It will be forever lost to the ages but captured, at least for a brief time upon my film to one day be brought back to a tenuous life upon my canvas’s resurrected by an artists brush.

-The GYPSY-

Tag: Ghost Town

The Artist Life: Things To Know About Ghost Towns

Ghost Towns Offer Unlimited Creative Opportunities For The Artist and Photographer

VISITING A GHOST TOWN CAN INSPIRE YET YOU MUST SHOW RESPECT

The Artist Life: Yeso

YESO