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Cindy Stockton Moore

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‘Zane’s Wake’

Volume 1:  ‘The Great River of the Gulf’

From Tales of Southern Rivers

Published 1924: Revisited August 2011

scroll down to find about more about this on-going project
ZanesWakeVolume1

‘Zane’s Wake’ is an on-going, multi-volume book project that examines text as a departure point for geographical and personal study.  Part genealogical inquiry, part visual travelogue,  ‘Zane’s Wake’ draws upon my familial ties to the writer, Zane Gray, most known for his Western novels.  This project takes essays from the writer’s sporting oeuvre and maps out the route of his adventures.  Following his trail --much changed by the passage of time  -- I revisit sites, research their precedence, and visually reinterpret the experience through a series of paintings and drawings.  ‘The Great River of the Gulf’ is the first in the series and it explores a noteworthy fishing trip taken by the writer in 1920s in the Florida Keys.  The resulting book showcases the accumulated imagery, overlaid moments decades apart seen from two distinctly different vantage points.

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The Page 3-4 spread documents my family tree back to the Zane Gray
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Excerpts from the essay map out the route along the Florida Keys that Zane and his brother travelled.
In August 2011, we set out to follow that trail.
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The Long Key Fish Camp and Lodge, where Zane often stayed, was destroyed by the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane
- one of the strongest in US History.
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This detail shows the vignette structure of the handmade book and a view of what the Long Key Fish Camp
looked like prior to the deadly storm
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We set up camp at the Edgewater Lodge, erected on the Gulf side of the key -- and former site of the employee quarters and docks of the Long Key Fish Camp.
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In the Atlantic, off of Sombrero Key, Zane and his brother fished for sailfish, battled sharks, and witnessed a tide of Portugese Man of War. Our exploration of the same waters yielded beautiful views of the living coral reef, some tarpon and countless stings from the ever-present moon jellyfish.
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ZanesWakeVolumeI
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