About

The American Peyote Story



The American Peyote conept has little to do with small white pellets spawned from certain cactus plants growing in the southwestern deserts of America. The name came into my mind one summer night at a bar on Woodward Ave. in Detroit called the Magic Stick. Then, late one night while building up a finite element model at my job I decided to start a website to supplement my journal writing.


I had just returned from South Dakota where I’d started reading the book “Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions.” When first introduced by European traders, whiskey was believed by Native Americans to induce visions. Therefore, whiskey was called Mni Wakan, translated as holy water. For some folks alcohol and drugs have become the easy answer to distract their minds from the search for purpose and religion in life. I have found little need for such foolishness, here photography, writing and sober creativity form the framework of expression.

Physically Peyote is a drug, which might melt the brain, but spiritually it represents a door – which when walked through, (not unlike Blake’s Doors of Perception) helps to heal the soul (so I’ve read). The American in American Peyote represents the core influence of my art, photography, and writing – I’m an American and my perceptions in art, science, and creativity has been heavily influenced by the country of my birth. I’ve never subscribed to the notion that drugs are required for enlightenment, and instead take the less traveled route, opening creative ambitions using tried and developed skills – being unsettled with the words, art and images I see day to day and am on a quest to make my own – using the creative medium to heal the soul.

American Peyote is a collection of distinctly American inspiration with a focus on photography and writing. Writing, photography, thoughts, ideas, all inspired, composed and published in my interpretation of the American Dream. In short, American art in words and pictures that seeks to heal the soul; or if nothing else seeks to entertain and induce thought.

The focus will change, I’m interested in storytelling, which takes the form of essays, gear reviews, photos, economic principle, political forces, imagery, and whatever else I dream up.  Eventually it may become more video-photo integrated.  I write about these things because I feel a desire to, and because it doesn’t exist anywhere else in such a form.  Those who follow these pages might read about trips in the mountains, trips through photographic lighting techniques, and ways to enable creativity and the drive to develop the thinking tools you need to create the art you’d like to look at day to day.

-American Peyote Executive Editor