Cafe, Burwell Livestock Market
Burwell, NE

These photographs are part of a large project to interpret something of the life and land in the U.S. Great Plains, that
vague no man's land loosely fixed in the imagination some
where between the humid Midwest and the Rockies, running
from West Texas to eastern Montana.

Irreducible elements here are dry silence and grass, wheat
and cottonwoods, horizon and sky, the square of section line roads, the circle of pivot irrigators, infrequent but always
welcome rain, roads and railroads that cross the broad
distance connecting worn towns with brighter places to the
east and west. This is the American steppe, parts of 10
states, some 450,000 square miles, an area one-sixth of
the lower 48 states, a long-contested region of pinched possibilities, the most ignored--and reviled--region of the
nation, and possibly the most beautiful.

From Hokanson's essay "Across the Grain," published in
Speakeasy in the summer of 2003

From this large group of images, I am curating a 60-plus print
(the exact number yet to be determined) show that, pending sponsorship, should be ready to travel by about July 2004. It
will include maps, text blocks, labels and promotional materials.
Specifics will be posted as they become available.
See Photographic Exhibits page.