Our country’s driest state does
not treat humans gently. “The desert was one prodigious
graveyard,” wrote Mark Twain about his arrival in Nevada in
the 1860s. “And the log chains, wagon tires, and rotting
wrecks of vehicles were almost as thick as the bones.” Today,
many people perceive Nevada as a gambling mecca surrounded by
barren desert.
But a more accurate and colorful portrait
appears in Earthtones: A Nevada Album — first published in
1995 and newly released in paperback. Earthtones pairs 66 color
photographs by Stephen Trimble with six essays by Ann
Ronald.
Ronald reasons that an appreciation for alkali
flats and empty space is an acquired taste. “Almost all of us
have been taught a worldview that prefers green and blue to ocher
and beige, that values redwoods and oceans more than rabbitbrush
and sinks,” she writes. “Dryness generates beauty of
its own.”
Ronald counts the gifts that a dry
climate can offer: the blooming claret cup cactus, the dark anvil
clouds that glower on the horizon, a fleeting moment with mountain
goats. “What may appear lifeless and alien from a distance
becomes quite vibrant and familiar when viewed from a desert
armchair.”
From cracked mud playas to icy peaks,
the Nevada of Ronald and Trimble is still an austere expanse
— but it’s also a place that rewards persistence and
patience with aesthetic satisfaction.
Earthtones:
A Nevada Album, essays by Ann Ronald and photographs by
Stephen Trimble, University of Nevada Press, 2002. 136 pages, 66
color photographs. Paperback: $27.95.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Nevada: A diamond in the rough.
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