Last year I put a title to the body of work I’ve been working on for since 2016. My Private Idaho.
I have done photography in one form or another since the late 80’s when I built a darkroom in the basement of my parents house. Photography is perfect for the person who is both creative and impatient. I wanted to create works of art but there was no way I could endure the hours of labor required to paint or sculpt or draw. Photography was my outlet. I had creativity bursting forth and I channeled all that energy into the useful utility of photography.
Life intervened. I got married, had kids and set to making a living for my people. Photography was the means. I don’t suggest trying to earn a good living from photography. It’s too much work for the reward, in my experience but at the time it was the path that I had to succeed. Some of the joy of photography was leeched by demanding clientele and erratic cash flow. I left full time photography behind in 2009 when I went bankrupt in California because the economy was sinking fast.
Beaten and weary I moved my family of 6 back to Boise from Southern California. That’s when I started doing business with my youngest sibling, Zach. He had just graduated from Boise State with a degree in political science and was planning on teaching high school. The economy was bad. Boise school district had just instituted a hiring freeze so he was out of luck unless he would be willing to leave the state in search of a teaching opportunity. He was ripe for something to do. I was tired of doing photography for money so we started Page One Power in an outbuilding behind our rental house.
It was so much fun. I had never made money so easily. Working for years in the photography space had hardened my expectations. Page One Power opened up a new reality of people easily signing contracts worth 10’s of thousands of dollars. It blew me away! How fun! We grew the company and put a priority on hiring good, quality people to make sure it ran to its full potential. Business was booming and we were happy.
We had 5 kids. My life was full.
In 2016 Zach and I decided to take a break from the day to day of the business so we decided to take three months off starting in June. That was the best summer I had ever had. I went straight into the waiting arms of my large format 5×7 film camera. I was shooting the foothills around my home and the Boise River. I spent long hours walking the trails with my wooden camera on my shoulder. I took photos early in the morning, I took photos late into the evening. I drove on dirt roads to viewpoints. I walked in the river up and down places both familiar and unfamiliar.
The river and foothills have always been close to my heart. I spent a lot of time mountain biking the foothills as a teenager and hours hanging out at the river bottoms with my friends. So many memories around the foothills and river. I wanted to share the wonders therein. Photography was the means.
As I took these photos they accumulated in boxes and on my hard drive as I scanned the negatives. The first two years I happily took these photos, shared them with Sam and put them away. Eventually though I felt frustrated. As a creative person I loved the creative process and making the work. I love using my hands and heart to make something new.
As the photos built up without a place to go I imagined a river flowing into a reservoir where the best water sinks to the bottom. Nowhere to go. Eventually I visualized a cesspool. A festering pool of stagnant water without an outlet. I had to figure something out because I wanted to share the work with anyone who appreciated it.
The work stayed in boxes while I tried other portfolios. I wanted to be an exhibiting photographer. I wanted gallery representation. I thought that if I traveled to more exotic and noteworthy places like Tunisia, White Sands National Monument and major US cities. I cold make photography that could achieve my dreams of being a working fine art photographer.
Meanwhile my exhaustive collection of local work sat lonesome in boxes and on hard drives. I had some success with my other work. My portfolio Electric Downtown was picked up by the Leica Gallery in LA. I had a great show down there. The exhibition traveled all the way to Vienna where I had a wonderful show with a couple European photographers. I was planning other trips to Greenland, China and other places when the pandemic hit. What a bummer that was. It killed all my momentum for international travel. To further complicate my artistic life Page One Power started to slow down. It needed the founders attention again. Zach and I went back to work. That really slowed my progress.
That’s when Sam stepped in. She is a genius of making friends around town. She frequents shops that she likes and instead of keeping herself anonymous she gets to know the owners and employees. She has friends all over town. One of those friends was Judith Balis. Judith is a vivacious interior designer who started a little furniture store over on State Street called Feather and Twine. The name attracted Sam to her shop. She became friends with them. A couple of years later they opened a full scale furniture store on Fairview in Boise called Bungalow Home. Judith knows the trends and is an impeccable buyer. She always has just what Sam wanted for our home. Sam was one of their best clients.
One day in early 2022 Sam asked if I’d make a large photograph for our living room. I had a large format printer. I wanted to use an image from my local work. Sam agreed and I printed it large. 40×60. I’m a amateur woodworker so I had the tools and skill to then mount it on masonite and make a solid oak frame. When I hung it on the wall for Sam she said. “I’m showing this to Judith at Bungalow.”
She did. They liked it. But they had their art resource lined up and they put her off. She kept at it. Eventually she got into the ear of Theresa who championed the work for us. In July of 2023 we took our first 40×60 framed print to Bungalow. It was a proud moment for me to have a place for my precious work to flow. It looked great in their shop. They sold it. Sam got the text from Theresa and we jumped for joy.
Since then we’ve sold about 50 framed prints at Bungalow, the Sundry, a local shop, and the Boise home show. It’s wonderful. I love the work. I love the area and I’m passionate about my clientele. Whenever possible I like to meet the people who buy the work. I volunteer to hang it for them in their homes.
I’ve shot all over the area now. I maintain a list of places I still need to visit. There are 39 places on my list and it grows all the time.
I felt that I needed to make a brochure about it. That precipitated a need for a title and artist statement. I thought about it long and hard. Finally I decided to name the work “My Private Idaho” with this artist statement:
My Private Idaho
I spend a lot of time exploring the area where I live.
I’ve visited the places in these images many times.
Sometimes I go with my camera, sometimes without.
They’re my own Private Idaho.
I’m recording a YouTube video about the work and it’s evolution. I’m finding more and more places to show prints and to sell my annual calendars.
The portfolio will continue to evolve. I’ve done some work lately in color. That’s been fun. Sam encourages me to keep going but I don’t really need the encouragement these days. I’m driven from within.
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