Man Has His Art Really Nailed Down.

Publication: Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, NM)

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COPYRIGHT 1998 Albuquerque Journal

Byline: Slim Randles For the Journal

Bosque Beat

When John Alston went to Spain last year, he packed the usual things: camera, toothbrush, extra socks, hammer and nails.

"I always take along a hammer and a few nails when I go someplace," says John, sitting and having a cigarette guiltily outside his home in the foothills of the Jemez Mountains. "I was on the beach in Rota, and I hammered some nails in some driftwood there. One piece, I made a wish and threw it in the ocean and who knows where it'll turn up? China, maybe?"

He smiles at the thought, and he is able to chuckle quite a bit about his own art form. John Alston hammers nails into boards. He hammers thousands of nails, tens of thousands of nails, into boards. And those boards not only become quite heavy, but beautiful. The nails disappear individually and become parts of snakes and mountains and lizards and Kokopellis and the faces of people.

John reaches over and touches one of...

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