Bonanza Station, 2013

Mixed media, 73 x 22 x 14 inches. Collection of the artist.

Bonanza, the NBC television western ran from September 1959 to January 1973. At 14 seasons and 430 episodes it is one of the top ten longest running live-action American television series.

The show, set in the early to mid 1860s during and shortly after the Civil War, is centered on the Cartwright family. Ben Cartwright, the thrice-widowed patriarch and his three sons (each from a different wife), Adam, “Hoss” and “Little Joe,” live on a 600,000+ acre ranch named the Ponderosa, located on the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe in California.

Bonanza was the first television that I remember seeing in color. Friends of my family had bought a new color television – round screen, and we gathered around the set and watched Bonanza, in color, transfixed.