GRANTS, NM – Among the books about the famous historic “Mother Road”, Route 66, the photographic journey documented by artist Sondra Diepen is a jewel.
Diepen did not begin as a photographer but originally studied drawing as a kid. When she attended college, she decided to take art during her 2nd year at the University of California Davis. Her professors were the Bay Area artists Wayne Thibaud and William Wiley. Exposure to their techniques no doubt helped to train her eye for light and composition.
After graduation, the artist taught elementary school, but on her breaks, she drove to the Southwest, visiting New Mexico and Arizona to enjoy the drier desert. When Diepen retired from teaching she was painting watercolors, but around 2003, she became interested in photography. Her focus was on travel photos.
Her collection came naturally. The Southwest had always been attractive to her family, and her parents often vacationed here. By the time she was an adult, she was familiar with New Mexico and she had made it her new home, attracted by the culture and educational opportunities.
A visit to a friend in Key West, Florida who had a photo business proved helpful. He noticed the balance and sharpness of her 35mm photos. He made blow-ups of a few to 16 x 20 and made the prints on different, finequality art papers.
Diepen was loaned one of the many books about Route 66. She enjoyed the topic and the contents, but she found that the book was disorganized. The photos were in a random order, rather than by the year, or locations, and it was also without any historical information.
This inspired Diepen to question herself, “Maybe I can do a book!”
So, beginning in 2012, she began to document and organize her own photo collection of the section of Route 66 that crosses New Mexico, beginning at the western border of Texas in Glenrio. And she started to research old trading posts, like the Bowlin’s Trading Post at the Bluewater turnoff. She recorded the murals at the Old Crater Trading Post.
Her next step toward a book was to find a publisher. She asked Sunstone Press for a consultation about self-publishing.
“How do I get a publisher?” After seeing her content they wanted to publish her book, but Diepen still had work to do. She added narratives and stories about the places in her photos that she had gathered from the people she met.
Her good friend, Carol Adamec, volunteered her skills. She lent her artistic eye for the layout, and cropped photos, another friend helped with editing the text, and her sister, Donna, would accompany her on re-shoots.
Before they turned in their manuscript to Sunstone, they had done most of the publisher’s work. Sunstone didn’t mind. The book has the flow of the artist’s vision. It is a visually engaging pageturner.
A lot of people are enjoying it for its nostalgic references. They open it and see places they have been to. The book can be enjoyed while driving or in an arm chair. The book tells the story of this romantic highway that still captures the world’s imagination.