“I search for the realness, the real feeling of a subject, all the texture around it…I always want to see the third dimension of something…
I want to come alive with the object.” – Andrew Wyeth
“VANISH”is an influential collective by fine art photographer Jim Westphalen, developed over more than 20 years and counting. This body of work highlights the Disappearing Icons of Rural America. Through his ocular, Jim skillfully captures the haunting beauty of decaying and abandoned structures, offering a poignant glimpse into the history of the American rural landscape. He transforms these forgotten spaces into a deeply resonating visual elegy, inviting contemplation.
Inspired by painters A. Hale Johnson, Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper, Westphalen’s photographs serve as windows to the world, presenting a romanticized realism that evokes the essence of traditional watercolor and oil paintings. Born and raised on Long Island, New York, Westphalen moved to Vermont in 1996 to be closer to his work.
Using a longer lens with his vintage 4×5 view camera adapted for digital capture, Jim takes multiple angles of architectural subjects, slightly overlaying a singular frame within the image circle. This technique produces a zoom-in effect, allowing viewers to appreciate detailed elements of the structures more closely. Using various acid-free rag papers, the large-scale archival prints create a panoramic view with an appeal reminiscent of the mood of the older 1970s and 1980s. This connection delivers the textural quality of a brushstroke and underscores his artistic influences.
From weathered barns standing proudly in sunlit fields to farmhouses that have welcomed countless families, the images capture the rich tapestry of life in Rural America. Outbuildings with their rustic charm, coal sheds filled with memories of hard work, train depots that echo the sounds of journeys past, and towering grain silos symbolizing prosperity all weave together the stories of generations. When they say every picture tells a story, in the case of Westphalen, the portamento serves as a testament to the ambitions, desires, hardships, shelter, and hopes for a bright future for the communities that called these places home.
“Through my own research of documenting the prolific landscape, it has become appallingly clear that we are witnessing a period of profound loss and physical evidence of our rich history. And while in many cases such difficult realities portend the loss of these VANISHING ICONS, it is my aim to keep these treasures alive.” _ Jim Westphalen
Prints are available through the galleries that represent Jim’s work.
For further information about images, please visit www.jimwestphalen.com
Orwell Barn 1
By my creator’s forgotten method of blood bone capability and mans
Faded means of stone-cold necessity, I was created in this space
Born in this place by a king of intention and a master of self-reliance
Home I was to my creator’s own as his hard-won dirt came to be my own
Together, enduring his lifetime of unceasing brutal barren winds
And guiltless black tundra winters
From the aging decade upon the next, never forgetting
The unspoken sole duty of keeping each other safe and alive
No longer recall the day of my master’s passing
Though, periodically, feeling the broken knuckle-repairing
Pounds of his hard-wearing hammer
As well as the soothing rhythmic vibrations of his workhorse chisel
I still hear within both my slanted yet unfailing walls of
Timeless hand-milled bones and brawny rock foundation
Laughter and tears of his wife and children
Long since have I stood strong and alone with this
Honor of being the memory of my creator and his own
I am the undying sentinel of the neglected,
Faded graves of my creator’s family
The graves that lay close to my master crafted
Unwilted infinite stiff-knee frame and crushproof rock
Dug from my foundation of well-earned inherited earth
I am the keeper of history, the last evidence of a time
When man solely had his will to survive on which to rely
Born I was from my master’s skin-split hands and
Hunched working man’s limp— his trudge of perseverance
I will decay alone the proud symbol of
A human endurance and way of life which no longer exists
I cling to life a painstaking, hard-crafted structure built by Old-Century excellence
A monument of a Northeast American Blue-Collar man who died,
Only with the dirt he worked, his family name, and a working
Man’s pride of a righteous life lived
I am Legacy…
The epitaph of a King crafter of Earth, wood and stone,
Built with bare hands alone
To build a persisting life for my master and his beloved own.
— Scott Harris
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