THE ARTIST

The Call of the Wild West

Photographer Andy Marquez may have been born in Bayside N.Y., but it isn’t home. During his youth he had a touch of the wanderlust and while he may have had residences in other places, none of them were truly a home where the heart lives. That is, until home contacted him via a phone call from a cousin.

It was the early-eighties and Marquez had just started shooting again after exploring some of the parks in and around Houston. It was the first time he had been inspired to pick up his camera in ten years.

Upon hearing the news about Marquez’s rekindled interest in photography, his cousin called him up and urged him to come up and check out the scenery in Colorado. Once there, Marquez fell in love with the rich and rustic landscape, the rugged mountain terrain and the savage elegance of its wildlife. In 1985, only two years after their first visit, Marquez and Teresa, his wife, with newborn baby in tow, packed up their things and headed for the mountains.

They settled in Littleton, Colo. and never looked back. Since then, he and his wife had two more children and Marquez discovered a passion for photography he never knew he had. He chased wild life and a never-ending collage of rocky mountain scenery. Thanks to that fateful phone call from his cousin, Marquez’s home found him by showing him his path in life with a little slice of photographer’s heaven.

As Marquez was soon to discover, the life of a photographer is truly a journey, not a destination. To get established, he exhibited his work at over 600 art fairs in locations from coast-to-coast, logging in nearly a million miles. Along the way, “I’ve blown three transmissions while on the road,” notes Marquez.

Despite being road-weary, the opportunity to share the wonders his lens captures has made it all worthwhile. While trekking across the country, Marquez made many friends and fans of his work. He sold-out 30 of his prints and firmly established himself among the elite of professional photographers. Having shot about as many miles of film as he’d traveled, in 1992 Marquez opened his first gallery in historic downtown Littleton.

Although Marquez has captured spectacular images from around the globe, he admits there is no place like home. “I’ve been all over the world, but I still have such a strong feeling for my home state of Colorado,” he says.

This deeply felt love for home shines through in his latest coffee table book, “Colorado: A breath away from heaven,” which was just released in November of 2006. The book chronicles the four seasons with stunning clarity. The photos portray the brittle beauty of winter, the inspiring rise of spring, the splendor of summer and the vivid blanket of colors that user in autumn. And has been selected by the Rocky Mountain News as a Best Book for 2006.

In the summer of 2007, after 14½ years in Littleton, Marquez proudly moved his gallery to Cherry Creek North in Denver, Colorado.