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The Imaginary West
I
was standing on a corner in Sedona, AZ, when a large, giddy woman with
a camera came up to me and asked, "Are you a real cowboy?"
"No ma'am," I replied. "I'm a figment of your imagination. Best keep your eyes peeled for imaginary Indians."
I
can't blame her for asking. She was a tourist after all, and I was
dressed in the usual Stetson, vest, chaps and boots that most people
associate with cowboys and their ilk. But the answer I gave her was
true, after a fashion. I was not a real cowboy. There are no cows or
horses anywhere near Uptown Sedona anymore (the smell would not be
tolerated) and very few real cowboys either. I was employed as an
entertainer, pretending to be a cowboy in a sanitized, fantasy version
of a West that never existed. Sedona's real, messy, complicated West
was bulldozed and regulated out of existence some years back. Replaced
by an imaginary West, replete with T-shirts, rubber tomahawks, phony
cowboys and faux adobe timeshare boxes. A West more in line with the
public's Hollywood flavored expectations.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This
is one of those moments when I concede the value of facebook. I would
never have known of Dave Wilder's magnificent work had it not been for
the thing we love to hate.
Dave combines his extraordinary skills as an artist with wit and an eye for the absurd to produce these memorable images.
Hopefully, Dave will become a Zephyr regular. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next. "Go West" (above) is his latest...
So,
in a sense, I really was a figment of her imagination, in unreal cowboy
for an unreal place and time. I stood next to her and smiled as her
friend snapped our picture.
Limited
edition giclee prints of "Go West" are now available. Original sized
16x28" prints are $200, and the smaller 9x16 prints are $60. Limited
edition, 300.
and on facebook: "David Wilder Arts"