MAÑANAVILLE
“Sure, it is pretty, but for business this place isn’t always easy,” says Jack Kotz of Santa Fe. “You wait a lot, for one thing. I call it ‘mañanaville’—‘tomorrow, tomorrow.’ And another thing: Santa Fe doesn’t have jobs. It has real estate.”

In Santa Fe, tomorrow’s usually worth the wait. As for jobs and real estate, Kotz has work he likes, and he has real estate. His complaints are good natured. His sarcasm doesn’t drip, it meanders. He doesn’t appear to suffer from Santa Fe’s laid-back attitude, either. In fact, he’s a lot like Santa Fe—plenty going on, no evident hurry to get it all done. Friendly, hip, garrulous. Then again, maybe it’s his shirt.

But this particular day, Jack Kotz is a house on fire. He’s heading to Hawaii with wife Mary Anne and son Nathan. This annual month-long sojourn—where he has been working on a book project for the past six years—requires a lot of planning. He’s keyed up, packing, checking lists, attending appointments and putting up with an untimely interview. Yet he somehow finds some time to meet and tell his story over two days. Both times he’s wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt. Don Ho of the desert. No lei.

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
Kotz’ life has provided a broad perspective. The son of two nationally acclaimed writers, Nick and Mary Lynn Kotz, he was raised among some of the leading artists, authors, writers, political figures and intellectuals of the past three generations. Father Nick won a Pulitzer and is regarded as an expert on both MLK and LBJ. Mary Lynn is renowned for her work on Robert Rauschenberg. Arts and letters filled Kotz’ youth. So did expectations.

“I grew up going to the National Gallery and the Corcoran,” he says. “Many writers, artists and political types visited our home. Such exposure is bound to teach a person to appreciate the nature of beauty and the value of art.”

Kotz also grew up with a conflicted compass, one foot in the North and one in the South. A mid-Atlantic/Northeast home life was polarized by an instinctive attraction to his mother’s native Mississippi. He spent summers visiting his maternal grandmother in the small community of Mathiston, Miss.

“If my mother has spent a lifetime trying to get away from Mississippi,” says Kotz, “I spent a lifetime trying to be a part of it. It’s a rich and powerful place. It molded my fascination for the authentic and the tangible—it colors my work.”

The annual trips to Mississippi were not all languid days and sultry nights. They were journeys of the imagination—and they led to Kotz’ grand oeuvre, Ms. Booth’s Garden, an homage to his grandmother and the rural community where she spent her life (more on this later).

OPPORTUNITIES SEIZED
Early in life, Kotz permitted himself to sample some of the nice opportunities his life afforded him. “I spent my college years in Ohio trying to figure out what I wanted to do,” he recalls. “I didn’t become a good student until I got interested in something. Art and music interested me.”

At a family gathering, friend Joanne Goldfarb, a Washington, D.C., architect, suggested he pursue architectural photography. Another family friend, painter William Dunlap (later to become Jack’s mentor for decades) led Kotz to Walter Smalling, a wellregarded photographer who worked with leading D.C. architects and National Park Service publications. Smalling hired Kotz, and he stayed five years.

The experience sent Kotz in new directions, resulting in work with Roger Kennedy, then director of the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Kennedy, who had engineered many important books on American design and culture, hired Kotz as a photographer for his book series Rediscovering America, which concerned itself with American regional architecture (it later became a television series on Discovery Channel).

Perhaps Kennedy and Kotz’ best collaboration was on the book Greek Revival America. It was Kotz’s big break. “It put me on the map,” he recalls. “They were Roger’s books, but they were a great opportunity for me to travel, make great photos and get them published.”

Although his equipment was humble and his compensation modest, Kotz’ early reputation was made with architectural images. “Shooting in cramped spaces, with poor lighting and substandard equipment, was a major challenge,” Kotz remembers, “but I was able to do it. It was fun.”

The Greek Revival experience also helped the young photographer refine his vision. It was also proof that getting in the door is only half the battle. What you do once inside is up to you. Kotz might have been lucky, but he was good at making the most of his luck.

THE BIG TEX FANTASY
In 1991, Kotz moved to Santa Fe. In 1997, he married Mary Anne. The intervening years saw him laboring for regional home style, resort travel, fine dining and home design publications. An occasional advertising client came and went, not many of them especially memorable. But the editorial work was ample, including the Smithsonian, Southwest Art, Midwest Home & Garden, Su Casa and the Santa Fean.

Developers and architects also were drawn to Kotz’ sense of place, even to the point of wanting him to produce it for sometimes- soulless creations (strictly author’s opinion; Kotz disputes this) by the likes of Sun Desert Homes (Santa Fe), Conger Fuller Architects (Aspen) and Vista Clara Ranch (Galisteo, N.M.). One job followed another. Haul out the lighting, set up. Shoot the fabulous deck. The 40-foot lobby and master suite with heated floor. Kotz filled the pages of style and design mags.

He comments, “It was good work, sometimes fun. But how many times can you shoot Big Tex Oil’s $10 million fantasy of the lodge-pole Dream Lodge? How many 100-point elk chandeliers can you take?”

Still, it paid the rent and built him a solid reputation. Meanwhile, his book credits included Frank Lloyd Wright: The Masterworks and The Missions (also by Kennedy). He collaborated with illustrator Joel Nakamura and designer Fred Cisneros on a book about a beloved, out-of-the-way, Santa Fe restaurant—Harry’s Roadhouse Cookbook.

MS. BOOTH’S GARDEN
The idea was a book about his grandmother’s life and environs. For 20 years, what was to become Ms. Booth’s Garden occupied Kotz’ mind. An escape from commercial work, far away from snippy art directors with melancholy lives, it was the wellspring of the artistic vision seen in his work today.

“I’d been working on this thing for two decades, but I couldn’t seem to get it done,” Kotz says. “In 2002 my grandmother’s health began failing. I wanted to get this book done before she died. I wanted to prove to her that all those years of me prodding and poking around her life, following her around town, all had a point. I had saved enough to take some time off, so I did it.”

Kotz poured himself into the project. He selected and produced final prints, and pursued publishers warily.

“Ten years of no’s can deflate a man. I’d send these great color comps to editors, and they didn’t get it—or me,” he says. “I remember this one asshole telling me, ‘It’s just too personal.’ I thought, ‘Too personal!?’ Jesus! It’s about my grandmother’s life and her small Mississippi town. It’s about my values and my visual sensitivity, about the way I feel about place and reality. Of course it’s personal, dumbass!”

The Mississippi Museum of Art agreed to publish the book. The University Press of Mississippi stepped in as distributor. Kotz marketed and promoted it himself, organizing a one-man exhibition at the Mississippi Museum of Art and media events to garner attention. Family friend Jim Leher, of PBS’ News Hour, blurbed the book jacket. NPR essayist and southern humorist Bailey White wrote the forward.

Longtime friend Joel Nakamura spoke to me about Kotz’ decision to produce his dream work: “We all dream about quitting the rat race and pursing our ‘art.’ Well, he did. He stepped outside the ‘normal’ and took a great leap into the unknown. There were some dark days during this process, but I think it should inspire anyone who calls him- or herself a creative professional.”

Ms. Booth never saw the finished book, but Kotz did share final layouts with her in the hospital. Finally, she understood what all his pestering was about. Shortly after this visit, she died.

OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND
Kotz’ single-minded pursuit of his book did not come without collateral damage. A year off from earning can affect more than just your bank account—it can be a career-killer. Says Kotz, “Art directors and editors moved on … while I was out following my muse. They weren’t interested in my work anymore.”

He adds, “A long time ago I decided, for better or worse, that it is best if you handle the entire process, from scouting, to shooting, to processing, to retouching and printmaking. Control the football and stay in the game. I invested big in technology, so I could control my work. Trouble is, it ain’t cheap. And when you turn away from your clients, and they in turn get used to guys who can do it cheaper and faster, they don’t miss you very much.”

Sitting down beside his Epson 4000, Kotz showed me how he can produce ink-base prints in large format that give him even greater creative flexibility. “To many, this prepress crap drives them nuts. The Epson 4000 prints 17 inches wide, and as long as you can make an image. I buy paper in 100-foot rolls, and usually print on Epson stock. So I do my own color corrections and prints. I’m a bit of a dweeb.”

Kotz can produce colossal prints. His 44-in.-long panoramas sell for about $2000. He has one on the wall at Gerald Peters Gallery —one of Santa Fe’s most prestigious—that is an eye-popping 95 in. long (asking $4000). With the help of photography curator Catherine Whitney of Gerald Peters, Kotz’ work is alongside some the biggest names in Santa Fe’s art scene. And there are plenty of big names in Santa Fe.

MAKING FRIENDS
In the end, says Kotz, “The idea of pounding the pavement in midcareer has never appealed to me. I’m liberated … the universe [is] telling me to put up more of my own work. But the camera can be a horrible thing. If you know what you are doing, nothing has to look the way it really does. You can undo the natural. I have had to unlearn some of my own training and habits. I have had to make serendipity my friend again. The digital camera has really helped me in this respect. You can be so fast, so spontaneous and shoot so wide, that entire new possibilities arise.”

POSTSCRIPT: MEMO TO SELF
• Get the book done before you die.
• Make the personal your strength.
• Make serendipity your friend.
• Spend allergy season in Hawaii.

TOP: KOTZ’ EXPERIENCES IN ARCHITECTURAL PHOTOGRAPHY HAVE TAKEN HIM FROM KIVA-STYLE TO MANOR HOME. CLOCKWISE FROM UPPER LEFT: PRIVATE RESIDENCE, NEW MEXICO; DETAIL OF THE STROMQUIST HOUSE, FROM FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT: THE MASTERWORKS, 1993; A NOTABLE FEDERALIST-STYLE HOME, FROM HALLOWED GROUND: PRESERVING AMERICA’S HERITAGE, 1996; THE CLARKE HOUSE, FROM GREEK REVIVAL AMERICA, 1989.