Introducing Walks With Words

We were commissioned to create a book cover. That entails me taking a photograph and Michael creating the graphics. When I started rolling the book's title around, waiting for inspiration, an image popped into my head. A typewriter in the desert plugged directly into the earth.

Like this -

WHAT DOES THE EARTH SAY

Or this -

PLUGGED IN

Now that I am thinking about it, I might have stolen that loose idea from Monty Python's Flying Circus and John Cleese sitting at a desk on the beach. The absurdity of that image has stuck around in the recesses of my brain.

Like this -

not my photo

Or this -

found on the internet, i didn't take this

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

As we were walking around the sand dunes looking for different locations to set the typewriter, I kept catching Michael out of the corner of my eye. So I started placing him in the frame.

Like this -

SURF'S UP

and this -

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION

Before long, we started a little game that I think might be unique to us. That guy in the photos became a character. So if he was a character he needed a name. Michael named him Walks With Words and we started planning shots containing him. You know, Walks With Words because it was no longer Michael. When we commit we commit. The first few pictures looked -

Like this -

LISTENING FOR THE MUSE

and this -

WAITING ON THE SUN

and this -

THE POET ROAD

Next step, some tweaking of the wardrobe. I have been trying to get Michael to buy a pair of cowboy boots for YEARS. You see, the first time I saw him walking across The Olivia Apartments lobby, he was wearing cowboy boots and he walks like Kris Kristofferson in them! So, of course boots were ordered, we needed them for a costume. Then I fitted him with my hat and the outfit was complete. The pictures came out

like this -

SITS WITH WORDS

and this -

IN HIS ELEMENT

Of course we needed a character sketch

Walks With Words

Is a

Poet

In his early 60s

He

Travels light

boots, sunglasses, questionable destinations,

and one electric typewriter.

A product of the poetic past.

He writes in arroyos, on dunes, along back roads, and next to adobes.

He keeps the myth of the wandering poet alive

with electricity fueled by the earth.

We needed the character sketch because how else would we know how he would pose in pictures?

Like this -

HOME

and this -

WALKS WITH WORDS

If you happen to see him typing into the wind somewhere, out on the road, just wave and pass on by,

he's hardly at work.