June Redford Van Cleef:
NECTAR
COMPUTERS Capturing the Soul of the Texas Outback
Servicing West Texas with comprehensive
and experienced support since 2003
Story by Nora Seymour ~ Photos by June RedfordVan Cleef
800 N 5th, Alpine Texas • www.nectarcomputers.com
432 837 3021 • Support Cell: 432 386 7811 • Mark Hannan, Owner
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G
16
Cathedral Mountain with 1900 Fence, Cathedral Mountain Ranch, Brewster County
rowing up in the early
1950s on the vast open
terrain of the Big Bend, young
June Redford enjoyed a quin-
tessential West Texas child-
hood. Roaming freely across
the 96,000-acre ranch her
father managed, Redford and
her brothers made their own
entertainment, hunting arrow-
heads, riding her Mexican
pony, YoYo, across the rocky
terrain studded with cedar and
cactus and practicing her aim
with an old .22, picking off tin
cans and the occasional rabbit
in the mountains surrounding
the ranch.
“It was a free life,” she says.
Cenizo
Second Quarter 2009
“There wasn’t much govern-
ment interference. Open
country – no city lights, no
noise, no pollution. You could
get right to living.”
When she wasn’t exploring
the natural beauty of her sur-
roundings, she could be found
in the barn, poring over stacks
of Life magazines saved by her
mother, an avid amateur pho-
tographer who documented
her family’s life in black-and-
white stills and, later, in
8-milimeter movies.
The vivid, documentary-
style photography featured in
the pages of Life made a deep
impression on the artistic
young girl, who, from the time
she first picked up a pencil or
brush had been drawing and
painting the world she knew.
As she leafed through the tat-
tered magazine pages, images
created by the documentary
photographers of the 40s and
early 50s – Robert Capa,
Walker Evans, Dorothea
Lange, Eugene Smith and
other luminaries of the docu-
mentary photographic art
– made an indelible mark on
her imagination – and her eye.
Inspired by the intimate
journalistic work of the Life
photographers and encour-
aged by the example set by her