Ephemera: Poetry and Photography by Lloyd Patrick Baker

Ephemera is a photographic and poetic journey through geologic history and ancient mythology to modern day warfare, politics and man’s ultimate corruption of nature. A rich lyrical strata of shrapnel, mahogany and mastodons, this is the opus of Lloyd Baker, a somber and surrealistic artist who’s elegiac words and striking photography ring with prophetic verity. A native of Eastern Oregon, born during the Great Depression, Lloyd writes with reverence for the high desert of his childhood. As a young boy, he practiced falconry, taxidermy and ballistics and observed first-hand the treatment of Japanese Americans at the internment camp at Tule Lake. The son of a uranium miner, Lloyd fought against the storage and burial of toxic 2, 4-D chemicals near Lakeview and has witnessed the destructive impact of technology, greed, and waste upon nature and cultures. A man of diverse artistic talents, he studied ceramics in Finland on a Fulbright from Indiana University, and has been a professional photographer since his service during the Cold War. Enthralled by ancient and native cultures, Lloyd lived for a time among the Huichol Indians and engrossed himself in the study of mythology and ancient languages from Sanskrit, Anglo-Saxon to Hittite. Lloyd’s life-long engagement with languages, etymology, ornithology, geology, archaeology, history and literature enriches his poetry. A haunting poetic epic, Ephemera is sure to be intellectually engaging and stimulating for the anthropologist, the romantic and nature-lover alike.