Patchwork House

Back in my hippie days, I lived in a patchwork house in the ghost town of Oatman, Arizona, on old rout 66.
It was a miner's cabin, left over from the gold rush days of the early 1900's, when so many people flocked to these hills to mine gold, that the hills were covered with people living in tents.

Remember those patchwork quilts people made during the depression? They used flour sacks, discarded clothing, and any thing else they could find to create colorful warm quilts with no particular pattern. Our house was like that. It was made from scraps on tin and wood that had blown off of other houses. Even the nails were scrounged. My three year old and I picked up nails all over town; his father straightened them and used them to  put up the weathered wood and rusted tin walls.

When we first moved in, the roof leaked and there was no water or other plumbing. By the time we left, we had installed a real kitchen sink with running water, a shower, a real flush toilet, and even a hot water heater. In the summer, the tap water was so hot, we had to cool it with water stored in the unlit propane water heater!

I've been enjoying doing little watercolor paintings inspired by my photos and memories. I plan to gather them into a sketch journal to tell the stories of our time in Oatman.