Sheepherders' carvings are now a dying art, and many authorities feel that the now deceased Pacomio Martinez Chacon was the grandmaster of aspen tree and cliff drawings.  "Paco" chacon has been designated as a "master" folk artist by the Colorado Council for the Arts, the Museum of Western Colorado, and the Rocky Mountain Regional Office of the U.S. Forest Service.  This book is the story of both the man and his work, as well as the story of aspen carvings by sheepherders in the American West.  This art is unique because Paco had to carve in a way where he could visualize his work after the wound scarred and the tree healed.  With his cliff drawings he had to plan for erosion and fading.

The cover of My Name is Pacomio show Paco (1916-2009) and one of his classic "pin-up style" nudes, as well as another good example of his artistic merit.  His, as well as most other sheepherder's art, is so rapidly disappearing that today most of what remains has to be viewed in a few private collections or in remote rural areas of western Colorado and eastern Utah.  The author, Steven G. Baker, has been a historian, anthropologist, and archaeologist for over fifty years; but even more important to this book, and to him, he was a good friend of Paco for the last twenty-five years of Pacomio's life.  This close friendship that they shared shows through clearly in this book, and allowed Baker to gain many detail of Chacon's life, Mexican-American culture, and the lonely but special life of a sheepherder.

This book is dedicated by the author "With many tears for my good friend, Pacomio Chacon, professor of the sheep and master artist of the trees and cliffs."