Abandoned Houses - Memories and Structures

I'm flying solo (more or less) at the shop for the next few days. Chickie is off today doing the last of her packing and getting ready for the BIG MOVE tomorrow. Then she'll be back at the apartment on and off over the next week or so cleaning, patching, and getting it ready to return to the landlord along with the keys. Places always look so different after furniture and items have been removed. Walls that held memories of discussions, laughter and tears echo aimlessly until new lives come in to imprint upon them. The old adage of "If these walls could speak" sets up residence once more and lives move on. 

This is Ashcroft, Colorado, also known as Chloride and several other
names. It's located ten miles south of Aspen. In my mining book I
was writing for several years, one main characters lives in Chloride
until the 1930's. 

One of the things I adore is the exploration of old houses. There aren't as many of those around these days as there were when I was young, but my youth was spent exploring in places I very specifically was NOT supposed to enter. My summers, if you might recall, were spent in Aspen, Colorado, which at that time was still a sleepy old mining town just finding its feet and a new life with the arts during the summer and skiing in the winter. Throughout the town were old, abandoned miner's houses and shacks, because it's too high in altitude with weather too grim for too many months for camping out alongside the Roaring Fork river. 

Quite a few miles south of Ashcroft and Aspen, closer to the
border of Colorado and New Mexico, was the town of Animas.
This mining shack still stands, paying homage to those who
worked the mines. 

My parents rented, and then purchased, one of these old abandoned houses. It was actually pretty well kept up - inhabited regularly so patched and painted. It dated from the 19-teens, so it was an older house, although not as old as some. The walls were thick - almost a foot thick. That was for the purpose of insulation and structural integrity against the winter cold winds and the heavy snowfalls. There were windows present in each room, but wall dominated each exterior expanse. There was a front porch - a bit rickety so we rarely used it, and a back entry directly into the kitchen which was our normal way in and out. A side yard allowed for our construction of a more modern house a few years later when we split the lot in half. 

OK, this isn't a home, this is the Crystal Mine, near
Marble, Colorado. I remember a few car trips to Marble
in my summers while in Aspen. The Crystal Mine
is nestled deep in the hills. Although people still
live in the area, access is difficult so the residents
are summer residents only. 

I explored throughout the town and on many of the streets, abandoned houses were the norm. They were settled in their weathered wood, surrounded by waving grasses and weeds, and the music of the grasshoppers and squeaks of the mice sometimes sang along with the ever-present breeze. I always had to be careful - some of the flooring wasn't safe to walk on, and the houses were mostly pit foundations - holes dug for cold storage cellars, large boulders in the corners to hold up the housing structure, and quite the fall into darkness if the flooring gave way. Exploring the homes was exciting and I couldn't resist their siren's call. 

The mining town of St Elmo, Colorado was founded in 1880. It's up
high - more than 9000 feet above sea level. When mining was at its
peak, more than 2000 people lived here. The town was abandoned
in the 1920's and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It's
a lovely ghost town, with a lot of similarities to the Aspen I
knew as a child. 

Did you ever do something in your youth that you probably shouldn't have done? I'm sure we were all guilty of something in our past. If you're up to it, share with me. I'm going to put abandoned houses into this post, bundle up, and go out into the cold. We're getting a nice cold snap now and are getting our coldest temps of the season thus far. BRRRRR! Have a great Friday and I'll be back tomorrow. 

A New Day

What do you do when you wake up in the morning? Do you think about what you will need to get done at your job? What you need to make sure that the kids make the school bus on time? What you will eat for breakfast? The first thought that goes through my mind is what day of the week it is. That determines when I can leave and how much computer work I can get done at home before I leave for the shop. Fridays are good days - I can hang at the main computer until 7am. I do try to think of creative activities for as long as I can before I dive into the day's work. Thinking creatively is my way of thanking the Creator for my life. But thinking creatively and living creatively are very different things. It is very difficult, in the US at least, to live a creative life.

The world would be a happier place if people would allow themselves to live a creative life. Does that mean that no crops would be grown, no stores would exist, no buildings would be built? No...it means that crops would be beautiful - as they are. The fields would be plowed in a creative manner that was kind to the earth. The crops would respond to that care by flourishing in their own right (climate not appearing as part of this equation at this time), and the harvest would be bountiful. Stores would exist because creativity for some people is in product display and the sales process. It is a valid creative outlet. And buildings would be built to be kind to the environment. Not to dominate, but to co-exist. And that's where the world would repay us by allowing us to continue to live in this beautiful and multi-faceted world of ours. So...start today by thinking in a creative fashion for the day. Spread happiness creatively.

Remember and Honor

Today is September 11th. I remember where I was when I saw the attacks on the Twin Towers - do you? In so many ways the death of the Towers was the start of the next phase of American history. With their destruction, we entered wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and entered the serious financial epoch that we are currently in. Looking back from a long history, the Towers will join a long list of "causes" that were pivotal in ensuing conflicts including the Alamo, the Main and even the Bastille.

Rather than concentrate on the conflicts that came to us because of Sept 11th, I will concentrate on the remarkable human side that was shown on that day. The heroism, the above-the-bar actions of simple human beings that made such a difference. We, as a nation, showed our mettle that day. We joined together. We buried the dead and comforted the living. We went on, united in a single platform and goal. In small places over the ensuing years we have had cracks occur in our unity. But when push comes to shove, we will defend our freedoms down to the last child. Among those freedoms is the freedom to chase your bliss as long as that chase does no harm to others. So I urge you to honor the dead of September 11th today, and renew your personal decision to chase your own bliss as a way to memorialize the freedom that they gave their lives for eight years ago.

Sleep - Feed Your Brain

Human beings, and most of the creatures living on Earth, require sleep. Sleep allows the brain to wander down pathways that we never imagined possible. There are many discussions about whether people dream in color or black and white, whether or not they remember their dreams, and what their dreams correlate to in "real life". But I am a proponent that dreams are simply another reality, one that I haven't been visiting often enough (I'm very sleepy today).

I dream in color. I rarely dream about people or places that I already know. I have a great love of structures - buildings of all types and floorplans play a major role in my dreams. Color plays a large part - a sunset over a gloaming magenta sky looking at a drop-off pool against the sky is one vivid image from more than 20 years ago that is still a treasured memory. A variety of buildings - some friendly, some much definitely less than friendly, are also treasured memories. The colors and concepts sometimes come through in my artwork. I do find that my art tends to be structural in the underpinnings - I find it next to impossible to work in the totally abstract. Think about your own dreams. Not necessarily the specifics, but the general concepts. Do these come through in your personal art? Maybe you should explore those avenues for a more personal expression of yourself through your art.