TheArt Tourist stays in the mountains

Art, to mountain folk, is Nature

by Terry Talty

Breckenridge, CO – I had every intention of taking advantage of the art life in Denver on the evening of the first Friday in April but it was snowing in Breckenridge -- a town just 80 miles away -- and I just watched it snow.

April 7 would have been another installment of the first Fridays gallery walk in the city, and I've yet to decide if they are an upwardly moving art event or to know where the pulse is in the Denver art scene or how heartily it is throbing. But instead of driving to the city, I was looking at photographs of dirty melting snow. On that day, it was snowing and adding a newish white layer to what I was seeing in the photographs. Spring in the mountains where Breckenridge is situated at more than 9.600 feet above sea level, and images of it, remind me of urban art: bleak, not man-made but man-manipulated, and sad. The mountains in the spring look like snow is never ending, never melting, never gone. Feet, likewise, feel never dry, like the never-dry trails and paths. I'm exaggerating but spring in the mountains is like the hopelessness of a Muslim youth struggling with the furtureless prospect of further high unemployment. It's spring -- I'm young -- but what to do with it.

In the summer, mountain people laugh at names like "Never Summer Wilderness Area" or "Eternal Winter Sport Shop" because for a few brief weeks it is unlikely to drop below freezing -- and people that live in the mountains like snow. By by April, there has been enough snow, and even a happy, ski-loving mountain person starts to recall bad memories of a time when snow lasted just too long. I've had snow fall on me -- in town, not just on some mountain peak -- every month of the year. It was rare, but yes, in August too. It was the 23 of August, 1997 or 8. Many July 4th I've watched fireworks in the snow.

So these pictures of beautifully melting snow, taken by Steuart Bremner, seem so sad.

Like ugly urban modern art, these photos glorify the things around us that are beautiful while being an eyesore. Like a nice graffiti, these images are a reminder that things could be better elsewhere, that in most other places it's only raining. That elsewhere flowers are budding, grass is growing, people plant seeds, people wear sandals on the street, have lunch outside without a skicoat.

Spring in the mountains is crappy snow that is a dare to ski and enjoy -- mashed potatoes that are too heavy, a snow cone that packs together in such a clump that it can't be swallowed. It is the season before bike and hike season and the season after powder skiing. It's the time to be somewhere else.

It's dirty melting snow that is no fun to ride on, but still it's warmer than it was, and mountain people don't stay inside the cabin. Never in the mountains is anyone really thinking about art. There is too much natural beauty to think you need it. All the million dollar homes have picture windows instead of pictures.

So I put on a heavy coat and walked around town, rather than taking to the highway and making my way along a slick Interstate highway with a bunch of people who have no idea it ever snows in April and have less of an idea of how to drive in it, to get myself to a place where one needs art -- the big city -- and where the weather was in the mild 60s -- mild and springlike, with trees budding and grass growing.

Terry Talty is the self-described art tourist, who writes contemporary art criticism in a postmodern world where anything could be good.