The shadow of the crane on the silo, this structure...elegant yet in her last days.
I have photographed her for years...and when the city said they would tear her down after the fire I thought it would be quick
but it has been a slow process...
removing layer by layer
the construction of planks not giving it up so easily
sculputural masses pounded...I continue to photograph her demise and will add to my book when she is gone from this site.
I was making a book...of my time with Susanna's Winged Messengers...
trees eerily covered with ice from the gallons and gallons of water sprayed
gathering images from here and here
telling the story of how the flour mill inspired my photo essay with the Winged Messenger
the next morning I read that the mill had been engulfed in fire at the same time I was gathering photos, 2 teenage kids arrested for arson!!?? This is sad on so many levels, historic architecture with so much possibility for a renewed life, many ideas over the years but nothing ever came of them. Most recently it was decided this would be our light rail train station.
But it was also home to many of the quietly ignored.
Thinking of them all right now.
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It was time....to let the message take flight....
Susanna's Winged Messengers have taken flight all over the world....I have photographed them here and here, all the while looking for a place to leave them....to set them out into the world.
I find this place both sad and beautiful...
signs of a struggling life within the ruins....
so this is where I left it....Yes, you are a work of art,
perhaps a message of hope....
perhaps it will bring a smile,
to the life that yet inhabits this world.
Back to the flour mill today....but a cold, bleak....gray day.
signs that for some of us, the act of gathering warmth...
and securing shelter is a constant struggle.
What can each of us do to help?
Following the rails around town today....on my walk I cross several...
I love riding trains.....we used to take the train to Michigan every summer as a child to visit my grandparents. It was always such an adventure, so very different than the hurried rush of air travel that we are all so used to.
One of my favorite books as a child was Penny, by Marjorie Torrey, the story of a young girl who travels by herself to spend the summer with her Aunt Penelope. I adored the descriptions of the train ride...unwrapping the tiny parcels her mother packed for her journey as well as all of the other beautifully written adventures and Torrey's original water colors. I used to read this over and over to Tess... as I was looking through this book just now, I was wondering if Tess enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed reading it to her....then I noticed she had placed MANY little book plates throughout saying 'this book belongs to Tess'!
Passenger train travel was discontinued in the late 60's for the most part....oh, there is some light rail in parts of Denver, but no rail travel up and down the front range that can really get you any place.
The Fast Trax train initiative is to begin construction around 2016! or there abouts. This will utilize the track that is in existence running up and down the front range. We'll be able to hop a train to Boulder then on to downtown Denver for a play, art event, dinner...the theater!
This is the site of the proposed train station here in Longmont...the old flour mill. I LOVE these buildings...there have been plans of one sort or another for years to redevelop the property somehow.
Please, PLEASE....I only hope they preserve as many of the structural details as possible...
Do you have any 'ridin' the rails' tales to share?
