Around Colorado in Carbondale’s Creative District you will find decades of photographer Martin Garfinkel’s collections and his new stormy road series, right there, on Main street at the Roadside Gallery. This unique gallery showcases images of landscapes, vintage signs, old barns, automotive images and an intensive collection of black and white photographs.
Around Colorado in the early ‘90s, while Garfinkel was rolling through on his Harley Davidson motorcycle he spotted the “Colorado Hotel” sign above the boarded-up business. You can see some of the neon still there, in the black holes in the word ‘Hotel’. Curiously, the ‘Colorado’ is all paint, no neon, which Garfinkel ascribes to the un-importance of the name of the spot. Back then, people were more concerned with getting the type of business across, rather than the name of the hotel. Today, it’s all about brand names.
Around Colorado in Glenwood Springs, twenty-five years ago, you’d find a string of motorcycles-Garfinkel’s included-parked underneath the pistol-shaped neon sign above Doc Holliday’s Saloon. It was old style, a real nice back-bar, a real old place that served bar food. While the locals and bikers remain, today the bar also has its fair share of tourists marveling at the vintage Western photographs of the gambling dentist and gunslinger who’s buried down the road. That vintage pistol-shaped neon sign was captured by photographer Martin Garfinkel which showcases at the Roadside Gallery.
Around Colorado in San Luis, twenty-five years ago, Garfinkel and a few buddies pulled into a small San Luis restaurant named Emma’s Hacienda. Inside, they found the restaurant namesake presiding over her family as they dished up Mexican Food. Through a connecting door was the El Patio bar, which Emma’s husband, Joe Espinoza, owned and ran from 1946 until his death in 2004. When Garfinkel was there, Espinoza was in his late 80s and serving his third term as mayor of San Luis, earning the nickname ‘the oldest mayor in the oldest town in Colorado’. San Luis was founded in 1851.
Around Colorado in Denver former Colorado heavyweight boxing champ Eddie Bohn opened the Pig ‘n Whistle Restaurant as a hamburger stand and gas station, but it quickly became the favorite spot for his athlete friends and their high jinx. The restaurant closed down following Bohn’s death in 1990, and the sign has since been removed.
Around Colorado there is eighteen certified creative districts read more here.
Director/Designer of Roadside Gallery
Debbi Fadli has lived in Carbondale, Colorado for 20 years after raising her two beautiful children in Morocco. She has a passion for fine art photography and for the past 7 years, besides doing sales, being chief marketer, she also has taken the work of photographer Martin Garfinkel and designs an astonishing range of fine art photo merchandise.