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Sunday, January 26, 2020

THE AMERICAN DREAM

by Alan Catlin


Born in Wichita, Kansas, fine art photographer Tom Kiefer was raised primarily in the Seattle area and worked in Los Angeles as a graphic designer. Kiefer moved to Ajo, Arizona in December 2001 to fully develop and concentrate his efforts in studying and photographing the urban and rural landscape and the cultural infrastructure. In 2015 Kiefer was included in LensCulture's top 50 emerging photographers and Photolucida's top 50 Critical Mass. His ongoing work “El Sueño Americano” (the American Dream) has been featured in news publications nationally and internationally. 

“Don’t let no one take your hope or dreams away.”
            —Tom Kiefer, photographer, assembler


Dispossessed items
at the Border made into
Art:

Duct tape re-enforced water
bottles used as canteens

One worn Mickey Mouse sweater
child sized 2017

One baby shoe 2018

A montage of hair brushes
and combs fitted into a near-
perfect square pattern 2017

A tangle of shoelaces, blue
like a nest of vipers,
conqueror worms 2017

50 potentially lethal,
non-essential toothbrushes,
in patriotic colors: red, white and blue
assembled as USA USA USA 2019


Alan Catlin has published dozens of chapbooks and full-length books, most recently the chapbook Three Farmers on the Way to a Dance (Presa Press), a series of ekphrastic poems responding to the work of German photographer August Sander who did portraits of Germans before, during, and after both World Wars.