Scott Baxter likens a lope—a horse gait that falls between a walk and a gallop—to the old coin-operated mechanical horse rides that could be found inside shopping malls and near storefronts. “It’s just a real smooth rocking motion, a nice up and down,” he says. “They call it a hobby horse lope.”
Wolter van der Kamp and his bay horse, Longview, Alberta, 2019, archival pigment print, 44 x 28”
He likes the word because it begins to touch on how mobile his own career is as he travels all around the West to capture his photographic subjects. The word turns up in his new exhibition, It’s Just a Quick Lope and a Cigarette, opening December 17 at the Taos Art Museum at Fechin House in Taos, New Mexico. The exhibition, which runs through January 26, 2020, will feature around 30 pieces in a variety of sizes, as well as photographic mediums, including silver gelatin, platinum plating and photogravure. 
Silkie Perkins at Bakers Pass Tank, Yavapai County, Arizona, 2010, archival pigment print, 44 x 38”
O’Haco Cattle Company, South of Winslow, Arizona, 2006, toned silver gelatin print, 20 x 24”
Baxter, who lives in the eastern Arizona town of Springerville, shoots mostly on film, much of the time from vintage medium-format camera equipment. He also develops, processes and prints all of his own photographs, which is becoming a rare feat in today’s digital studios. The exhibition will span from 1998 to “images shot last week,” Baxter says. “All my work is distance and time. And for this show there is going to be some ranch images, as well as some cowboys.”
For more information about the exhibition visit
www.taosartmuseum.org.—
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