The Griffin Memorial Hike - Silver Plume, CO

Clifford Griffin
Son of Alfred Griffin ESQ. of
Brand Hall, Shropshire, England
Born July 2, 1847
Died June 19, 1887
And in Consideration of his Own Request
Buried Near This Spot

On Saturday, we hiked up the Clifford Griffin memorial above Silver Plume, Colorado. Griffin ran the Seven Thirty Mine on Silver Plume Mountain in the 1880s. His fiancee died the day before their wedding and to escape his grief he joined the Colorado gold rush in Silver Plume, CO. He lived in a cabin up there and played the violin every night to an appreciative audience in the town of Silver Plume below. The story ends tragically when he takes his own life in a grave of his own making after playing his last notes on violin.

There's a huge monument to him on a moderate hike above Silver Plume, and it is definitely one of my favorite hikes in the area. The hike itself is littered with debris from the mine and weaves its way above the town of Silver Plume through several aspen groves, a gulch full of avalanche damage, and over some rocky slopes. You can find more info on the hike via Hiking Colorado's Summit County (screen-caps here and here if you want to print out the info for the hike). It's a short drive from Denver - located close to Georgetown - I'd highly recommend it. Interestingly, we hiked to Griffin's memorial just one day after he died - in fact, we were there the same day that the miner's discovered his body 122 years ago.

"Venom and Eternity"

Internet Archive has a downloadable/viewable copy of "Venom and Eternity"on their site that I found to be a endlessly entertaining and fascinating film. You can put it on your ipod and watch it on your next flight. It is a film that defies almost all the conventions of movie making. "Venom and Eternity" is a chaotic 1951 film mostly made up of Jean Isidore Isoumaker yelling at the viewer and as seen above - telling them that they are "all a bunch of idiots". The narrative is difficult to make out, the images flip around the screen (sometimes upside down) and are frequently stained or scratched up, and there are even parts that sound like an "Sung Tongs" era Animal Collective tune made up of rhythmic, chanting nonsense/noise:



Check out this rant I transcribed in which he compares his unconventional approach to Picasso's approach to painting;

"Before him, others indeed destroyed the image – Why any child who destroyed the image was a Picasso – But Picasso was the first to leave beautiful, normal painting and with infinite research and enormous pains, progress towards the destruction of beautiful, normal painting. He thus systematized new painting and hacked out of the forest of painting the path that goes from ordinary figurative art to non figurative art to abnormal art.”

Fellow blogger Bret Wood also transcribed a section that says "Let people come out of a movie with a headache. There are so many movies from which one emerges as stupid as one entered. I'd rather give you a migraine than nothing at all. I'm not paid by an optometrist to bring him clients, but I should rather ruin your eyes than leave them indifferent."

According to Jean, the "destructive image is superior to an ordinary image" and in this short clip you can see how well he has excelled at destruction:

Photo of the Day

Lewis Thornton Powell (April 22, 1844 – July 7, 1865), also known as Lewis Paine or Payne - one of four people hanged for the Lincoln assassination conspiracy. This photo is from 1865, but to me - it has visually transcended the 143 years since it was taken. There's really something tragic and beautiful about this shot.

"Relief, Nay, Liberation"

"How often was I able, even in the later years, to cleanse my innermost soul of dark depression by painting dark fog-shrouded landscapes, snow-covered graveyards, and similar things. Perhaps these pictures appealed to other souls as much in darkness as my own. As for me, they always brought me relief, nay, liberation." - Carl Gustav Carus

Carl Gustav Carus, "Das Kolosseum in einer Mondnacht" (The Colosseum at Midnight"), Oil on Canvas, 1828, 47.5 × 37 cm
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Carl Gustav Carus, "Morning Fog", Watercolor on Paper mounted on Board, 1825, 20x26 cm
Source: Web Gallery of Art


Carl Gustav Carus, "Blick auf Dresden von der Brühlschen Terrasse", Oil on Canvas, 1830-1831, 28.5 × 21.7 cm
Source: Wikimedia Commons

I've been enjoying German Romantic painting lately. I ran across Carl Gustav Carus today while making a brief library visit. He studied under one of my favorite landscape painters - Caspar David Friedrich, so it's no surprise that I enjoy his work as well. Carus wrote that "The chief aim of landscape painting is to present a certain mood of the soul (meaning) by showing a corresponding mood in nature (truth)."

Quotes from German Romantic Painting by Hubert Schrade, 1967

Carved Aspen Tree Art and History

The next time you may be hiking out west through an aspen grove - take a closer look at the carvings and writing on their surfaces. There is a rapidly disappearing history of migrating sheepherders carved into them.

According to the National Parks Service website,

"[Carved] Aspen trees ... bear the marks of those who came before. Known as arborglyphs, dendroglyphs, or aspen art, the carvings provide an important record of the area's history.

The practice was started by Basque sheepherders in the late 1800s. Basque sheepherders were replaced by Peruvian sheepherders in the late 1900s adding yet another style and mix of arborglyphs. Recreational campers and cattlemen also left their marks, some of which date from the early 1900s.

The Basques, who call themselves Euskaldunak, are from the Pyrenees Mountains located on the border of Spain and France. Basques have their own language known as Eusk but since the majority live in Spain, they also speak, read and write in Spanish. This explains why some of the carvings contain a mix of both Eusk and Spanish."

The Hispanic roots of Colorado and New Mexico carved Aspen trees is explained by Arborlyphs.com writer, "Particularly intriguing about the carvings of Colorado and New Mexico is that they were not carved by Basque shepherds, but by Hispanics, whose forefathers had been in the area for generations. Among these herders were descendants of early pioneer families, settlers that came north from Mexico when this part of country was known as Nuevo Mexico and controlled by Spain. There was some Basque immigration to the Grand Junction, Colorado area but little if any to the south San Juans. These carvings are culturally different from the Basque carvings making them even more significant to Colorado and New Mexico’s history."

via Fultxo's flickr set of Basque Tree Carvings
via Fultxo's flickr set of Basque Tree Carvings

via ccguidedogs@sbcglobal.net's flickr set

via Snakeriverphotography

via Cowboyshowcase, "Basque Ranching Culture"

For more information, refer to the book:
"Speaking Through the Aspens: Basque Tree Carvings in California and Nevada", by J. Mallea-Olaetxe

New Work - Pigeon Camera

Based on the above historical photo of carrier pigeons mounted with cameas (especially the one on the right side) from 1904, I made a replica of a miniature camera and mount for a pigeon aerial photographer:

Nathan Abels, "Pigeon Mounted Camera", Plastic, Hardware, Leather, Ink, Acrylic, and Mixed Mediums, 2008

Nathan Abels, "Pigeon Aerial Photographer", Digital Photograph, 2008

And check out this cool video:

Leadville's Ice Palace

I was browsing the Western History and Genealogy images on the Denver Library website and stumbled on this fascinating late-nineteenth century wonder from Leadville, CO. All images and written content following the images is quoted from the Denver Public Library Western History Department/website:

"Leadville, Lake County, Colorado, Ice Palace under construction. Men work among blocks of ice; wooden poles rise in the background, 1896"



"Exterior view of the main entrance of Leadville's Ice Palace built for the 1896 Winter Crystal Carnival in Colorado. The site is known as Capitol Hill and is between West Seventh and West Eighth Streets from Spruce to Leiter. Architect C.E. Joy and Director General Wood designed the 320 x 450 foot Norman style medieval ice castle which was constructed of twenty-two deep ice blocks cut from local lakes and rivers. The entrance features an ice archway with turnstiles flanked by octagonal turrets, 90 feet high, with panelling and imitation battlements. A nineteen foot tall allegorical ice sculpture of a maiden in gown and crown, with her right arm pointing toward mines east of town, stands on a twelve foot high pedestal at the main entrance. She holds a scroll with gold letters $200,000,000 representing mining revenue produced through 1894."

"Interior view of the east entrance (Seventh Street) to Leadville's Ice Palace, which was built for the 1896 Winter Crystal Carnival in Colorado. The east entrance archway includes the Colorado Midland Railroad exhibit with painted logo of a standing American Indian on a glass plate and scenic photographs of their route frozen in colored ice blocks. A person squats outside the archway. There is a small wooden seat to the right of the entrance. Flag poles are braced in the corners of the ice wall. Wooden structures in Leadville can be seen in the distance."

"Exterior front view of Leadville's Ice Palace built for the 1896 Winter Crystal Carnival in Colorado. Features include octagonal turrets, 90 feet high, with panelling and imitation battlements. A nineteen foot tall allegorical ice sculpture of a maiden pointing her right arm toward the mines east of town sits on a twelve foot high pedestal at the main entrance. United States and Colorado state flags fly from poles on top of the turrets. Inside the castle was a skating rink, ballroom, restaurants, reception rooms, and museum exhibits."

Can you believe this? It must have been amazing in person - it had prismatic search lights outside that reflected off the ice and made the interior glow . The Ice Palace was intended to bring throngs of tourists to Leadville to create jobs, and rescue a dwindling economy. According to an article from Legends of America, "The Ice Palace entertained over 250,000 visitors during it's three month life. But, it was a financial disaster for the investors who built it, so another ice palace of its magnitude has never been built again." Its unfortunate that the Ice Palace didn't achieve all it intended to, but it is admirable for a community to propose such a grand dream.