Mount of the Holy Cross

Mount of the Holy Cross is an iconic tourist destination in Colorado, located roughly between Aspen and Vail. I'm researching the history of this site as a way of better understanding how landscape and landscape photography have functioned in the formation of American religious and political identity. In this instance, I'm particularly interested in how my own racial and ethnic identity has been shaped by a religious understanding of mountains as sites of divine revelation to individuals and groups.

In 2008 I began assembling and combining years of casual research about the Mount into a series of photographic expeditions. These culminated in a week spent at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass, Colorado, where I assembled a large photo-mural. I later designed an image triptych about the site for an editioned print collection, and am now working on some writing as well as a performance/lecture.

Finally, back to the mountaintop

I’ll be back in Dingburg territory this weekend, presenting a short illustrated monologue as part of the DIRT series at Links Hall, Chicago. Would love to see you there.

Ski the Superfund

Gilman, the nearest town to the Mount of the Holy Cross, was established in 1886 as a base for work in the Eagle Mine. The mining operation produced gold, silver, copper, zinc, and lead for almost 100 years, until the EPA closed the site and the town in 1984, designating the whole area a Superfund site for water poisoning, fish kills, and surface contaminants. The Eagle River in particular was a mess, and continues to offer problems (all downstream from Vail ski resort though).

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Read the Fine Print

I took the results of a week or two of Rocky Mountain location shooting and a year or more of archival research to Anderson Ranch this summer. The result, after a little less than a week for composition and assembly, is a large digital print that I’m gonna be shopping as a mural proposal to Colorado public art programs. Other posts in this series will explain how Zippy the Pinhead and I met on Notch Mountain for this project - or you can read the fine details here. (Zoom in and pan, like in Google Maps.)