A daily life series that explores the cultural identity of the longest street in the United States. Among the almost 50 miles of extension of Colfax Avenue, still home to the comfort provided by motels and neons, this series tries to portrait anonymous survivors. People who live or are in transit on this old road.
Like I was once.
GOLD, BONES, DUST & LUST 2018
Generations of men tried to cross from East to West through the main wagon path in what it is now the city of Denver. Everyone lost someone, buried deep in the soil.
Bones and dust.
Where before there was an ocean, now only fossils remain. This path was made out of dust. Bones and dust. Digging deep, blinded by the shine of gold fever. The sun bounces off a river made of cars, crushing stones in its path, one by one. Neon, shining in the dark with endless glow filling up the cracks of that rotten Colfax Av. motel.
Gold, bones, dust & lust.
The sun, the gold, the cars, the neon. Leftovers of human trace that were thrown away like cigarette buds.
A road motel sign stands along the almost 50 miles of road that comprehends Colfax Avenue, in Denver, CO. This road, obligated stop for the main route used to connect East and West, is now home for prostitution, drug deals or transitory places in a city that holds the 68% of the homeless population in the state of Colorado. Denver, CO. 2018.
Mark, 32 years old, at the parking lot of a road motel in Colfax Avenue, where he was resting for a couple of days with his wife and two kids, while he was trying to look for a job. They ran away from Oklahoma, scaping from bad habits and addictions. Denver, CO. 2018.
Mark's little daughter, hanging out inside the road motel where his family slept for a couple of days. Denver, CO. 2018.
Mark's hand touching a flower while we were waiting for takeout Chinese food. Denver, CO. 2018.
'Jonny B Good', a homeless man who has just been released from jail, hanging outside of a convenience store. Denver, CO. 2018.
A letter from Billy.
Billy is a homeless man who wanders around Colfax Avenue, asking people for money in exchange for a poetry reading. This letter from Billy consists of the first paragraph of his piece 'The Rain That Falls'. Denver, CO. 2018.
A couple of girlfriends share a marijuana joint outside of a nightclub in Colfax Av. Denver, CO. 2018.
An old postcard from an old road motel from Colfax Avenue. On it's back, the text reads 'Stayed Here, July 24, 1966'. Denver, CO. 2018.
A parking lot in an abandoned strip mall. Denver, CO. 2018.
Will, age 14
An underage boy who ran away from his hometown in Texas for reasons that he didn't want to discuss. Denver, CO. 2018.