Draft:Martin Bowden

Bowden was born on September 22, 1884, in Rive-de-Gier near Lyon, France, to parents of Italian origin.^[1][2][3] The family's original surname was Baudino,^[3] which was anglicized to Bowden^[3] after they arrived in the United States.^[4] The family emigrated when Bowden was young and settled in Las Animas County, Colorado. Bowden's father was a coal miner and died in an accident in 1889, when he was almost 5. His mother was left widowed with two young children, Bowden and his younger brother.^[4] In 1893, she remarried Matteo Tessidore and they had two daughters.^[5]

Bowden left school in his early teens^[2] and started working in the coal mines near Trinidad alongside with his stepfather, sketching on mine walls and coal carts using chalk and other available materials.^[2] Bowden later worked as a cowboy, traveling through parts of Wyoming and Montana before returning to southern Colorado. He then learned blacksmithing and metalworking in Hoehne, Colorado.^{[citation needed]}

In 1911, Bowden homesteaded near Purgatory Canyon under the Homestead Acts.^[6] Conditions in the area were difficult, and Bowden eventually abandoned farming.

Around this time, he created what is now known as "The Bowden Trail" a series of large-scale carvings and paintings along the walls of Purgatory Canyon. His work consisted primarily of life-sized^[6] or near life-sized figures, including animals and non-native Americans, made directly onto sandstone surfaces. Bowden developed his artistic practice over four decades,^[3] producing more than sixty individual images within the canyon.^[2] Bowden’s process involved first chiseling outlines into the rock to create a permanent form,^{[citation needed]} then applying paint, often just commercially-available house enamel.^[6]

Bowden died on July 29, 1958,^{[citation needed]} from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.^[3]

In 1972, Patricia Jozwaikowski tried to save Bowden's work from erosion, twice writing Colorado's governor. She also composed an original poem about the artist.^[7]