The Lovers - And Their Child, Apparently

I was at Colorado College over the weekend, just briefly using the campus as a location for some senior portraits. In between changes of outfits I noticed that this sculpture had been adorned with a plastic doll and some whimsical crocheting. Gotta love creative students! The name of the original artist has long been worn off the placard but one can assume that whoever it was, they were probably influenced by Giacometti. It definitely has a midcentury vibe. The donors names are still visible; this work was a gift from Franc and Rosemarie Ricciardi. Presumably one or both of them are CC alums.

Last But Not Least

Returning to my recent snaps of Colorado College, here's Palmer Hall, which you last saw in this post. Tomorrow is theme day, and hopefully I'll be able to come up with something, but no promises.

The Big Picture

The last couple of days I showed you some details of Shove (rhymes with grove) Chapel at the Colorado College. I thought you might like to see the whole church, so here it is. It's one of the prettiest ones in town. If you'd like to know more about it, click HERE.

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Here's the bell tower at Shove Chapel on the CC campus. By the way, Shove rhymes with grove and not love. English is weird.

Gothic

I took a break from the blog the last few days, please pardon my absence. I'm just a little overwhelmed with work at the moment. I took a short stroll around Colorado College on Monday morning. It's been a while since I featured Shove Chapel, the crown jewel of the campus. Here's one of the heavy wooden side doors of the chapel. More tomorrow.

Ye Shall Know the Truth, Etc.

Here's Palmer Hall without the photo shoot pictured in yesterday's post. The inscription above the arches reads "Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free."

It's That Time of Year

On Friday I was tasked with taking graduation portraits of a client who was about to receive her Master's degree. We started off at the Cascade Park Apartments, an old, ivy covered building that looks a lot like a castle, and from there we moved on to Colorado College. These students were clearly also about to graduate, and were taking pictures in front of one of CC's impressive old edifices. We had to wait quite a while for them to finish before we too could take advantage of those grand arches. I bided my time and snatched this photo just as the young man gestured proudly.

Tiger Pride

The Colorado College mascot is a tiger, and as you can see, the school colors are black and gold. This guy sits in front of the new ice arena on Tejon and Cache la Poudre. Unfortunately the college leveled an entire city block of cool old buildings to make way for the gargantuan new home for their celebrated hockey team. I'm still bummed about that. 

October 2024 Theme Day: Blue

The first of the month is Theme Day for City Daily Photo bloggers, and this month the theme is blue. I dig this assignment, because blue is one of my favorite colors! This building is on the Colorado College campus and I've always loved it because the color is so beautiful. And of course I had to include our trademark Colorado blue sky up above. Yes!

For more takes on blue from CDP bloggers everywhere, click HERE. Enjoy!

The Sobriety Dance (Or Not?)

This guy can almost always be found in the median at the intersection of Uintah and Cascade, dancing while holding up a sign. I've noticed him there many times over the last few months (he's kind of hard to miss). Although it doesn't look like it in this photo, that's actually a busy intersection with queues of cars perpetually waiting for the light to change color, so I just assumed the sign had something to do with panhandling, since he always has a captive audience. But while getting this photo ready to post, I could see that it actually reads "Dancing to make you smile while you wait awhile - 4 years sober." Hm. Part of me says, "Good for you, buddy!" And the cynic in me thanks fat chance, he just takes the handouts he receives and gets loaded. Who knows? At any rate, he's one of the more eccentric characters to land downtown lately.

Middle Ages

I was downtown for a hot minute this afternoon to get a key made at Henley's, a local locksmith. Across the street, a live band was playing behind the Wild Goose Meeting House. The musicians and the crowd were very young, which led me to conclude that they were probably college students -- I'm going to go out on a limb and guess Colorado College. When I parked my car, they were in the middle of performing a Rolling Stones song (I think it was Start Me Up), then they went into a rendition of Don't Know Why by Norah Jones. What a strange segue! These very young people were playing music that appeals more to middle aged folk (or older, even). I get the Rolling Stones song, it's rock and roll no matter how you slice it and it ain't ever gonna get old. But that Norah Jones song? It's straight up soft jazz, really. Utterly soothing. Don't get me wrong, I love that song and the whole album is fantastic, but it isn't exactly dance music (behold the people gamely attempting to dance to it -- it's just not possible).

As I was driving home, I kept wondering why on earth these 20 year old musicians would be in into slightly snooze-y Norah Jones stuff, and I realized that they were playing songs that reminded them of their childhood! Their parents must have had that Norah Jones album, which came out in about 2003 if I remember correctly, and of course the Rolling Stones appeal to many generations; no doubt the parents of these kids listened to the Stones, too. So there you go. Weird mix but it makes sense when you look at it from that angle.

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Today it snowed quite heavily. Parts of the area got 10" to 12" of the stuff, although my neighborhood only saw about 3". In the early afternoon I had a class at the Bemis Art School on the Colorado College campus and I was undeterred by the weather. Here's a shot on my way in. By the time I left two hours later, there was about 5" to 6" of heavy snow covering my car.

Brutal

Are you a fan of brutalism? I have to say I'm not as a rule, but there are some pretty cool examples out there so I make exceptions for the good stuff. Mostly, though, I just think it's kinda ugly. Ha! This brutalist staircase/landing/porch/wall thing adorns an otherwise completely unremarkable brick building on the Colorado College campus. I think all brutalism should be photographed in black and white, don't you agree? I took this picture on August 7, 2014, a little over nine years ago. By the way, I'm finally starting to deplete my archives, which is a good thing! I'm on a mission to clear out my hard drive. All of these old images have been a godsend this busy year and have helped me continue to post a picture for you every single day.

Flashy Mob

Yesterday we took a spin on the Harley, and I managed to snap off a couple of photos while we were at it, including this group of young people crossing the road on the Colorado College campus. There were many more than what you see here, and all of them were Asian. I have no idea what was going on but I did notice a few of them jumping rope, of all things. How very odd!

July 18, 2023 edit: Pat saw on the news tonight that there's a jump rope championship going on. So I'm not crazy, I really did see them jumping rope. Ha!

Running Rampant

I really have no idea what is going on in this picture. Last Thursday I had a personal errand on Weber Street, and afterward I came across a large number of young people (I assume CC students) wearing kooky costumes and running around in groups, seemingly at random. It was very odd. I managed to capture these two groups running toward each other from opposite sides of Uintah Street. It definitely looked like everyone was having a blast!

A Cost Effective Solution

On the Colorado College campus, the newly renovated Tutt Library's façade is oriented west, toward Cascade Avenue, and naturally so is its main entrance. But there's another door at the back of the building and honestly I have to laugh a little about it. Behold the Tiefenthaler Entryway. Are you a CC alum but don't have the buying power of a Tutt? Is having a building erected in your name a bit of a strain on the old pocketbook? Here's your cost effective solution: just pay for the back door!

Tribute

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving! I did. Normally I do a nice blog post for Thanksgiving, but yesterday I was so caught up with cleaning, cooking and eating (plus the resulting food coma) that I just didn't have the energy to sit in front of a computer, hence my absence. Apologies, dear readers!

Today I had an errand to run and drove through the Colorado College campus en route. This rather incongruous tipi in front of the Tutt Library caught my eye, so I parked the car and took a picture. I have no idea what it's doing there, other than it may be a not so subtle commentary on colonialism.

Charles Tutt Library (Part 2)

The other side of the Tutt Library at CC. I don't think it's particularly remarkable but I suppose it's an improvement over the previous incarnation. In the top photo you can see its boring Brutalist past in the grey concrete.

Charles Tutt Library (Part 1)

A look at the new-ish library at Colorado College. It's actually just a remodel of the old library, which had been straight up late mid-century, blockish Brutalism. You can still see vestiges of the old building if you walk around it. I do like the earthy orange cladding. It's rather reminiscent of terracotta and looks nice against the blue sky.

Bounding into the New Year

On January 2nd, the day after bitter cold temperatures and the first measurable snow of the season kept us cooped up indoors, the sun came out and I spotted several runners out doing their thing. These two were making their way through Monument Valley Park behind the CC campus.