LOST FRONTIER GERRY SPENCE. THE LOST FRONTIER including the Karen Silkwood case and the GERRY SPENCE IMAGES AND NARRATIVE BY

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1 $60.00 U.S. Gerry Spence is a well-known trial attorney THE who has spent his life representing the poor, the injured, the forgotten, and the damned. He has never lost a criminal case, and has not lost a civil case since He has tried and won many nationally known cases, THE LOST FRONTIER including the Karen Silkwood case and the LOST FRONTIER GERRY SPENCE defense of Imelda Marcos. He also founded the Trial Lawyers College, which established a revolutionary method for training lawyers for the people. He is the author of sixteen previous books, including the best-selling How to Argue and Win Every Time, and has been a frequent commentator on television, including serving as legal consultant for NBC covering the O. J. Simpson trial. He lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with his wife, Imaging. Nonfiction/Art Hardcover Front and back cover photographs by Gerry Spence Book flap photograph by John Johnson 12 x 10 in, 256 Pages 200 Photographs IMAGES AND NARRATIVE BY GERRY SPENCE The Lost Frontier is a rich visual autobiography of Gerry Spence, one of this country s most famous trial attorneys. It features a generous and dazzling collection of the author s own paintings and photographs, vividly embellishing his story of growing up during the Depression and his evolution as an attorney and advocate for the disenfranchised. Most importantly, it uniquely docu- THE LOST FRONTIER IMAGES AND NARRATIVE BY GERRY SPENCE ments his life in and relationship with his beloved state of Wyoming. With an unabashedly iconoclastic view of how things are and how they should be, these words and images could only have been created by Gerry Spence.

2 Contents Getting Together 12 The Early Years 22 The Boy 24 The Sheepherder 34 Ladies of the Night 44 The Body of Wyoming 54 The Landscape 56 Its Towering Mountains of Skies 66 Its Isolated Towns and Places 76 Wyoming s Chain of Lost Frontiers 86 The Mountain Men 96 Indian Wars 106 Gold! 116 The Homesteaders 126 The Underground Takers 146 The Coal Miners 166 The People 176 Native Americans 186 What and Who Is a Cowboy? 194 Killing 200 Unintentional Art 206 Birth of the Painter 212 What Is Art? Does It Matter? 222 Perhaps a New Art Form Has Been Born 230 The Teacher 236 Who Are We? Where Have We Come From? Where Are We Going? 250

3 The Mountain Men Mountain man with bobcat cap. This large, seemingly vacant square on the map, this Wyoming, was invaded in the early nineteenth century by the French, who trapped beaver to provide the fur for the manufacture of fancy men s top hats. The demand for top hats brought the West s beaver population to near extinction. Some of Wyoming s mountains and streams were named by the French trappers. The names they chose reflected something of themselves. The lofty peaks, the Tetons, reminded them of the breasts they longed for, and the river, the Gros Ventre (meaning big bellies ), was named perhaps in memory of their pregnant women. John Colter, a mountain man, a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, claimed that in 1808 he passed through the territory today known as Jackson Hole, my home valley. Then, the Hole was teeming with beaver that occupied the peculating mountain streams of the Teton Range. The Rendezvous of 1832 was held in nearby Pierre s Hole. Many hundreds of mountain men, Indians and representatives of fur companies met to sell and buy furs, to resupply themselves with staples their whiskey and tobacco and they came, of course, to generally raise hell and whoop it up. It is said that the camps of that rendezvous covered an area of seven square miles. Yearly, such gatherings continued well into the middle of the nineteenth century. As we, they were genetically tribal beasts in the same way that fish live in schools and sheep gather in flocks. But today most of us live our adult lives separated from any group we can genuinely identify as our tribe. Still, the tribe is the genetic foundation for nearly all human groups churches, clubs and sporting events. Political par

4 Purple and Black Image. Trees and Pink Moon. 230 Birth of the Painter Birth of the Painter 231

5 Crucifixion painting. As I worked these images I revisited my personal transformation from painting to photography. I thought once more of the countless painters who suffered through the centuries in creating the history of art. Only the precious few lived to profit from their work. But the work of those included in the rare ranks of the immortals will sell today for millions. And they can be purchased only by the wealthy, who will hang the painting on their walls like they hang the heads of a trophy lion they ve slaughtered. The work will represent their conquest, their money. It will carry the message, See what I own! See what I am able to buy! Most have no concept of what part of the artist s soul they were able to acquire with mere dollars. Photo of public painting of birds. Artist unknown. But photography is different. Great photographs can be purchased for a pittance compared to great paintings especially those that are offered by photographers who are still alive. Photography has become the art form of the people. The images that follow are of my early paintings married to current photographs a new art form? Well, we shall see. It is said there is nothing new under the sun. First is the series Crucifixion and Birds. It began with a photograph of my watercolor collage painting of the crucifixion. On a trip I photographed a painting I came across in a hotel lobby. It seemed to belong to the original image. The married images provide a surprising but macabre narrative, a form of mindless joy arising out of horror. Crucifixion and Birds (married). 244 Perhaps a New Art Form Has Been Born Perhaps a New Art Form Has Been Born 245

6 Red Desert Motel. The Underground Takers 121