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  • Old cars from different eras line the bank of a river.
    Oak tree growing up through a piano in an oak forest.
    Curtain pulled out through a broken window.
    Wrecked cars line the bank of a creek with a Monterey County Line sign and cattle.
    Shattered glass fills the floor of an large aquatic building.
    A cloaked figure hovers in the air in front of a wall of warehouse windows and doors.
    Police helmets and bowling pins litter the grass outside an overgrown concrete warehouse.
    Abstract pattern on a burnt wall.
    Remnants of a aquatic activities rest in a pond of stagnant water at the bottom of a swimming pool.
    Chair facing the corner of concrete walls with light coming in from a window above and graffiti on he wall below it.
    Abstract pattern on a wall.
    Light, Pallets, Concrete, Dark
  • An empty warehouse with an armchair and 2 windows arranged on the floor with light coming in from side windows a door in the back.
    Light shining through broken theater doors.
    Train cars litter a field like they were dropped from the sky.
    Close up of weathered piano keys.
    Telephone booth in the middle of wilderness.
    2 cars half-buried in a grassy field.
    Light shining through a cracked wooden warehouse door.
    Looking through layers of broken windows with intersecting metal and wood beams.
    Iron bridge crossing a wooded forest.
    Barbed wire fence blocks access to beach at sunset.
    Telephone hanging from broken glass window.

The Disappeared

The Disappeared was an exhibit I did early in 2009 with photographer Nancy Raven and watercolorist Ann Downs, and it forced me to crystallize a body of work I’d been building since 1996 on the theme of the earth retaking the “things of man.” It includes the ruins of Fort Ord on the Monterey Bay, the generations of cars parked in Lewis Creek in Monterey County, the mining ghost town of Granite in Montana, and a number of other similar subjects. I continue to add to this collection as the subject matter reveals itself.

Abandoning Fort Ord ~ More to Come

The Disappeared Exhibit soon evolved into Abandoning Fort Ord, an exhibit that appeared at several community meetings hosted by LandWatch Monterey County to educate the public on the myriad of issues hindering the redevelopment and preservation of open space at the former army base that closed in 1994. In 1997, The Fort Ord Base Reuse Plan (BRP) became the governing document and the Fort Ord Reuse Authority (FORA) became the governing body for implementing the BRP for how Fort Ord would be divided up between the adjacent jurisdictions, what would be redeveloped, and what would be preserved. It all represents a massive compromise between the participating jurisdictions from water districts to National Parks, and public nonprofit organizations as diverse as labor unions to art advocacy groups. The plan has been a great success in terms of creating  Cal State Monterey Bay, Fort Ord National Monument and Fort Ord Dunes State Park; and a monumental failure for the most local jurisdictions to follow the plan and for FORA to enforce the plan—MONUMENTAL FAILURE OF THE PUBLIC TRUST! So to me, the community vision for Fort Ord to be a catalyst for economic elevation and smart sustainable growth has been abandoned and replaced by greedy politics.

Abandoning Fort Ord will soon be released as its own portfolio that will include both the abandoned army structures and the land’s wild beauty.