1994 | Along US-60, Salome, Arizona
In the months just before his passing, Henry Wessel generously sat with me to review layouts of several of my long-term projects, which marked the entire span of our long friendship. During these sessions, he handed me his gift – an intimate view into his highly-developed process as an artist – the workings of a sharp, free intuition synched with his open, precise logic.
With one picture, he cautioned me, “This one is too easy – don’t give it away.” A week later, I e-mailed him a replacement for that right-hand page in the spread, an odd one for me, and he was taken in by it when we talked on the phone.
I was unsettled about this picture, made with my eye, not my mind, at a rest stop on a long, hot byway in the desert. I asked Hank if it seemed contrived in any way. As quick as a major-league hitter reading an incoming slider, he replied, “No – it’s extraordinary; it happened. Both doors are open.”