PUBLICATIONS: CARS in the NEW MEXICO LANDSCAPE
by Carlotta Boettcher
A photo essay documenting discarded and abandoned 30s, 40s, and 50s American classic automobiles and trucks that mysteriously have come to rest, incongruously at times, in Northern New Mexico’s pristine desert landscape.
By 1994 my 17-year classic car restoration and art car career had come to a temporary halt. I moved to New Mexico in 1995 where I had planned to continue my work and where the story about these images begins.
The unusual beauty and drama of Northern New Mexico's high desert landscape unfolded before me capturing my imagination. I could spend days driving the empty roads and highways without a focus or a destination travelling thru the countryside enjoying the spectacular scenery, collecting rocks, visiting remote villages at the end of rutted dirt roads,seduced by the glorious desert environment that surrounded me.
Suddenly, abandoned classic cars began to pop into view. Somehow the fields, arroyos, rivers, ravines and ranchlands had become their graves.
Never without my camera, I documented many of these encounters. Most were iconic 1950s classic machines preserved by the dry desert climate, now being slowly swallowed by the natural world that surrounded, entangled and grew within them.
