Ipso Gallery Mystic October Series No. 1
Photographs by Jim Groth
Falling in with a herd of sheep on the back roads of Aberdeen, SD in the late 1970s, curiosity led Jim Groth to a ramshackle, stucco homestead. After skirting around a charging, but fortunately restrained guard dog, Jim caught his first glimpse of the exquisitely weathered and infamous Bertha.
Camera in-hand, Jim captured their interactions, simultaneously revealing and reinforcing the lore surrounding this solitary local legend. The resulting photo series elicits the same question Bertha first posed to Jim when he show up on her doorstep, “Well, what do we have here?”