MY DAD’S PLACE
My dad taught high school on the Navajo Reservation in the 1970s and bought the Hogans in 1972. The Hogans were built in the style of traditional Navajo dwellings (Hogans) but with water, electricity, and cement floors. Built in the 30s, it was originally a trading post called Navajo Indian Village. When the trading post was operable, it was situated right on Route 66 — back before it was diverted to I-40. Since our driveway is Route 66, hiking there, you’ll find entire cars rusted and protruding from the silty red dirt like mechanical fossils. Hike a little further from the chunky paved ghost of Route 66, but not far, and you’ll find Anasazi ruins. I like to think of all those people who drove Route 66 not knowing that two football fields away was a piece of history still standing. And since time and place is a funny thing, I now stand on the ruins of Route 66 and marvel at being able to be in the presence of history still standing.
Everyone in my family besides me lived there full time at one point, a point of nostalgic jealousy that I try to assuage by visiting whenever I can. When I’ve taken photos here in the past, I would clean up, straighten out a rug, turn a vase. Or at the very least move a Home Depot bucket out of the frame. I didn’t do that this time. I’ve been shooting more than ever in the past six months, trying to build a portfolio that looks a certain way to a certain type of person. But when I stepped back to take it all in recently, I found it hard to see myself in the photos I’ve been taking. They’re beautiful and I’m proud of them, but they’re curated and clean. I thrive in the opposite and I relish in the real.
When I look back at old photos I’ve taken, I see the blind confidence of someone who didn’t know what they didn’t know. In that spirit, I took these photos the way they were. Not all horizons are going to be straight and I think my settings were pretty off on some of them. I didn’t spend hours editing them because they are not going on a billboard, they are going in my memories. Shot in Northeastern Arizona, end of March 2026.
A drawing of Elvis under a Route 66 underpass.
Tufted evening primrose.
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM SEASHELLS AND SHARDS
My parents whitewater rafting.
I’ve been working with an architect and interior designer on a website and rebrand and have spent a lot of time thinking about the ways in which a home gets seasoned over time with the artifacts of a person’s life. My dad’s place, and the corners where things naturally accumulate, is the result of someone who has enjoyed their life in very different climates; markings of a well-rounded life with the curling pages of an ancient Surfer’s Journal, seashells mingling with 500 year old Anasazi pottery shards, an Igloo cooler next to an old leather saddle .
THE WINDOW SEAT
THE WINDOW SEAT
The doors and windows are one of my favorite frames to view the Hogans out of, from sunrise (it feels like the sun rises especially early here) to nighttime where I’ve watched a full moon scoot across a skylight once or twice. I have found I love windows and doors and mirrors because they act like built-in movie frames.
One of my favorite stories about the Hogans, which were originally built as a trading post in the 1930s on Route 66 before it was diverted to I-40, is when my dad finally got his parents to come see his place. Years prior, my grandmother had given my dad a silver bracelet (one that has never left his wrist since), and she recognized the Hogans as the gift shop where she'd bought it for him. Invisible strings made of silver.
There are seven structures on the property, eight if you include the outhouse. The Lone Pine, pictured in the gallery below, is our living room/rec room where we do pottery, watch what VHS movies are around, and where my grandma bought the silver bracelet for my dad.
THE HOGANS MY DAD’S PLACE
The barn.
THE BARBECUE
Maybe my favorite part. Nothing tastes better than the Modelo you drink while you wait for a steak to come off this grill.
80 ACRES NORTH EASTERN, AZ
Apparently the fountain of youth is a barbed wire fence in the middle of nowhere Arizona. My dad at 81.
I’ve been working with an architect and interior designer on a new website and rebrand and have spent a lot of time thinking about the ways in which a home gets seasoned over time with the artifacts of a person or people’s lives. My dad place, and the corners where things naturally collect, is the result of someone who enjoyed their life and enjoyed it in two very different climates; the curling pages of an ancient Surfer’s Journal, seashells mingling with 500 year old Anasazi pottery shards, phone numbers written on the kitchen cabinet door as a perfectly functioning phonebook.
6am
9am
The rock structure used to be a monkey cage when it was a trading post. Pretty sick play structure to have as a kid in the 70s.
Arizona skies <333
The South Hogan
My dad’s hogan
The frontage road
The old blue paint.
