Rocky Mountain high, Colorado. Pt 2.

Drove up into the mountains while I was out in Colorado this time. First time to see the Rockies up fairly close. Went and had lunch with some of Lexie’s relatives in Ft. Collins then drove up around Estes Park, through a beautiful canyon in the Roosevelt National Park. Stopped at an old YMCA camp that’s been around for 100+ years. Good vantage point, bad coffee. That’s where the statue of the kids was. Thought it was funny that someone had knitted the kids in the sculpture scarves.

Carrie Nunes’ “24” ring is shown in action.

The elk were just chomping on somebody’s back yard and crossing (and standing in the middle of) the road as we drove by on the way up. They were a little skittish, but clearly pretty used to co-existing with people. These were females, babies and adolescents. The one male teenager was wondering when his horns were ever going to grow in properly, and wondering where his dad disappeared to.

Nice to see there are still some great old bungalow-style places in the mountains, leftover from another age. Also a bunch of newish places, but there must be “mountain hues” sections in the local paint stores, as they mostly seemed pretty tastefully blended-in with their surroundings. An interestingly diverse and subtle palate of greens and browns. Many houses seemed very precariously placed underneath mountain overhangs, but I suppose they know what they’re doing (?)

Stopped at several of the nicer lay-by vantage points on the way back down. Difficult to fully appreciate it all when you’re wending your way up twisty roads and trying to watch for other motorists.

Estes Park proper is a funny little Gatlinburg-style town. Crafts, baked goods, belt buckles, all manner of souvenirs. And ROCKS! Lexie was a little embarrassed by how excited she was to go to the rock and fossil place, but I was a rock-dork as a kid too, and can still have fun in a place like that. She took home a lovely geode-style chunk of amethyst. The 5&10 sign and the scariest bunny ever are from E.P.

Was loving the graphic quality and texture of the twiggy dead branches against the snow and other non-growth of the season. Spring had not yet sprung in the mountains.

Really enjoyed my little rental Toyota Yaris.

Rocky Mountain high, Colorado. Pt 1.

Went to visit Lexie in Denver for a week recently. After the BLIZZARD the night before I flew out (!?), the weather tamed down into normal springtime. We had a lovely time. One nice day was spent at the Denver Botanic Gardens, was excited to find they had a show of 20 large Henry Moore sculptures. Being rather hefty, they don’t tour much.

Moore was always one of my favorites. Saw a lot of his work at the Tate back in the 80s when I was in Europe after leaving Syracuse. Also saw another sizeable clutch of them later at the Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City. Might have been nicer if the Denver gardens had been out of their winter torpor, but maybe not...I quite enjoyed it kind of semi-dead. Loved the indigenous trees, the birches and the aspens, the pines.

Some recent-ish collage.

Meant to post some of these for people who weren’t able to attend our Cuatro Amigos en Armonía show at the end of last year. These weren’t all in the show (I forgot to photograph a couple of the pieces before I framed them), but most of them were.

Carrie.

No not the prom-night horror flick with Sissy Spacek. My friend Carrie Nunes, a fabulous jewelry designer and a sweetheart. Another portrait from this last trip to Nashville.

Carrie has really inspired me with this Ring-a-Day project she’s involved in with a bunch of other jewelry designers. Making, as you might expect, a ring every damn day for all of 2010! There are days when she would admit the rings have not been up to a standard of cleverness and/or craft—and you can tell it’s been a long day—but those days are rare.

Her Flickr stream of the project is here. She’s selling the finished rings on Etsy here to benefit the Craft Emergency Relief Fund.

I had an idea of shooting face and hands with LOTS of rings on both hands, but looking purposeful, not just like those ladies that just wear too damn many rings. We didn’t shoot very long, and because of the really narrow depth-of-field I was playing with, some of them the rings weren't too focused, but I liked them anyway. Didn’t really want everything sharpy-sharp. She looks like she’s sleeping and dreaming of rings in one of them, and I’m sure some nights she does just that.

Lately, I think I’ve realized much more keenly that I’ve had a ton of projects in my life that have never come to fruition, because I’ve “creatively procrastinated,” and something has moved away, died, or otherwise rendered a project moot before I got my shit together. Other than the usual bathroom functions, tooth-brushing, eating, etc. I’ve never been very daily consistent with anything.

Trying to fiercely and consistently carpe the diem.

Cornmeal Farm.

I was invited last Saturday to join two of my favorite girls, Capucine and McKenna, for a girls’ Ensworth lacrosse game, lunch, and an adventure to a place called Cornmeal Farm to pet some new baby lambs. Sweet chicks and fresh lambs : )

I know next to nothing about lacrosse. I think it’s one of the things we stole from the Native Americans before we slaughtered most of them. Like most ball-based games, it involves a ball, teams, and goals. Beyond that, I’m fairly clueless. Kind of like the confusion the first time I watched a soccer game, only more so.

Lunch I understand. We had a nice sandwich at a place called Penn Station, probably not ironically named for the rail station that was perhaps the most beautiful public building ever torn down in New York. Curious, I google it to find that, although it’s called Penn Station East Coast Subs, it was started in Cincinnati and seems most popular across the South. Go figure.

Cornmeal Farm is the home of Tami and Lep Andrews, who I met Saturday for the first time, although they are some of those people who are so welcoming and comfortable that I feel like I already knew them.

They have quite a menagerie. All manner of exotic chickens and roosters running about strutting and crowing and pecking, peacocks (including a white one, which seemed kind of rare and mythical), a white horse, a sweet donkey that we all took pictures with, cats, a sheep dog, ducks with funny haircuts (think the AFLAC duck with an obvious white toupee), baby chicks, a big tom turkey that was strutting his stuff like there was no tomorrow (despite the manifest lack of lady turkeys), and of course the sheep and their sweet little 5-day old lambs. The only animal on the place that seemed unhappy was a little raccoon who was in a safe trap waiting to be transported to a new home.

I was supposed to be shooting some more of our budding fashion work with McKenna, but sort of fell down on the job, as I was mostly having a nice time hanging out. What a relaxing lovely place. Look forward to visiting again.