COMSTOCK PORTRAIT PROJECT
The early frontier mining towns, Silver City, Gold Hill and Virginia City, Nevada, have been geographically protected from global standardization, are more isolated and somewhat deliberately maintained as hideouts and small time capsules of the original Wild West of America.
I began “The Comstock Portrait Project” in 2013, while working as Director of St Mary’s Art Center, in Virginia City. The portrait subjects are living in what remains of the boom or bust Comstock region, where the gold and silver rushes of the 1850’s and on-going mining severely impacted both environment and human habitation. The series is an archival portrait project, a collection of large-scale portraits, of today’s Comstock folk, recordings of their recollections, and photographs of homes.
