Expressing the West

It's hard to say why it is worth putting time and energy into protecting and conserving the West.  It's not that there aren't a lot of good reasons, it is simply literally hard to express the concepts.  Ten years ago I was sitting down with my personal friend and adviser, Greig Veeder, as it happens in a bookstore, talking about what our next ventures might be.  I told him I might try to do something about preserving the delicate Colorado Plateau.  Greig asked why -- and I was stumped.  It seemed self evident, and that if it wasn't self evident then it seemed to me it couldn't be explained.  But, it can be.

On Thursday last we sent out an email from Torrey House Press asking our readers who their favorite writers of the West are.  I'll share some of the delightfully thoughtful and insightful responses in another blog.  But before I do, I want to speak to the purpose of Torrey House Press, a purpose that was brought into a little better focus, as it were, by a blog post that was sent to me by photographer Guy Tal in response to our email (here).  I find Guy to be a tough looking, highly sensitive and exquisitely good landscape photographer.  Photography is a long time casual hobby of mine and I knew of Guy before his studio gallery showed up in tiny Torrey.  My immediate reaction to seeing his store front was delight that our little town could attract his kind of world class talent.  As the Chinese proverb goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but as even photographers like Guy know, sometimes it takes words, too.  So Guy not only takes pictures to express himself, he is also an elegant and thoughtful writer. 

In his blog Guy writes about caring about something so much it demands expression.  Then, the question is how.  Guy explores his creative license to use his photography skills, both behind the camera and in the digital darkroom, to best express what he fully perceives while out on the land.  Plein-air painters do the same.  And what I decided to do, to express in words what I felt passionately about, was start Torrey House Press, and get down those passions  from writers of the land.  I hope before too long to be able to point to a growing catalog of books and thus answer Greig's question.