Jason Lee – Inspire Your Craft
This month, Artisan Obscura is giving away a photo book by photographer, Jason Lee. We’re highlighting Into the Gold Dust Rush, which captures images from rural California, the Southwest, and Texas. It provides a unique eye into what Americana is and what it means. Click here to enter the book giveaway before July 14.
Jason Lee is more than a photographer. He’s an artist of many talents who began his career in skateboarding. Like other great cultural icons in America, he dropped out of school (high school) to follow his passion. Through the late 80s and 90s, Lee made his way into the pro skateboarding scene and helped popularize the sport (with his sick execution of the 360 flip). Also of note, he was featured in Sonic Youth’s “100%” music video, which was an early taste of the career he would have in film and TV.
After skateboarding, Jason Lee embraced acting. He found an artistic partner in director, Kevin Smith, and played roles in movies like Mallrats, Almost Famous, and The Incredibles. He’s also well known for his lead role in the hit TV series “My Name is Earl.”
For the past 14 years, however, Lee has been traveling the USA taking photographs and trying to understand our rich and complicated history. He describes his style as nostalgic and sentimental. Much of his photography takes him on long road trips through forgotten, out-of-the-way parts of the country. As for subjects, Lee often captures abandoned homes, open fields, and winding country roads.
Lee’s photography philosophy is nicely summed up in this 15-minute documentary, “The American Photo Road Trip.”
The Artisan Obscura team appreciates Jason Lee for both his life as an artist and the art itself. Our motto is “Inspire your Craft,” which means we want all people to engage with beauty in an active way. Based in Colorado, we love driving into the mountains to be in nature and appreciate it through the lens of the camera. Art is often a search for meaning and truth, and we believe Jason Lee’s photography exemplifies that perspective.
In the Gold Dust Rush is a summation of 12 years of wandering and searching. It presents 84 black and white photographs that depict solitary spaces in the American landscape and the often faltering atmosphere of dwindling rural towns. Yet there’s little that’s cynical about Lee’s work. Looking at the photos, one is struck with a sense of fascination, curiosity, and “what has been vs what could be.”
Lee’s core experience of the American road trip is one of conflict. He describes it like this:
Since my first photographic outings in my native California in 2006, where I explored a more rural, perhaps neglected face of the state, and the many subsequent outings zigzagging through the West Coast, the Southwest, and Texas, I remain fascinated by these American scraps, by evidence of cancellation and departure, and the environmental contradictions that make up our collective everyday view. These conflicts, at once strange and beautiful, this is where the questions are. It’s then and now splitting time, man and nature pushing up against each other, and progress forever forcing itself on the contented. And somewhere in the middle you make pictures.
The book is currently sold out on Lee’s official website.
If you’d like to explore his other photo books, they include an offering through Refueled Magazine, a standalone collection in A Plain View, and In the Gold Dust Rush.
For a deeper dive into Jason Lee’s life and photography, head to this in-depth profile in Vanity Fair. Don’t forget to enter our giveaway contest for your chance to win In the Gold Dust Rush. Contest closes July 14th 2021.