My Page: David Frey
STILL LIFE
Cancer Ended Photographer’s Life, But his Images Live On
The last thing Bill Meriwether wanted before his death last spring was a retrospective of his life behind the camera. He nearly got his wish.
The retrospective came – a gallery full of his stunning nature photography taken in some of the West’s most beautiful landscapes. But Meriwether never saw it. He died just days before the exhibition opened.
“Original art has a life of its own, which is not a trite statement,” Meriwether said to me just days before his death, his speech slowed by exhaustion and medication. “An original work of art will live on in its current form for perhaps tens of thousands of years. It’s all I think about. It’s the only thing that matters to me. The only thing that matters is when I’m dead and gone, my work is out there enjoying a life of its own and being appreciated for that fact.”
[more]GOP'D OFF
Shrugging off Critics, Dan Maes Stays in Colorado Governor’s Race
“Do not waiver! Never quit!”
Dan Maes, the Republican nominee for governor of Colorado, sent out that Tweet on Thursday morning, and it seemed to say it all. But political watchers were keeping their eyes out until the close of business on Friday to see if Maes would succumb to mounting pressure and drop out of the race.
Nope.
[more]'I GOT TO LOOK AT PARADISE'
Forgotten Film Reveals Lost ‘Paradise’ of Glen Canyon
The float trip begins with laughter and exuberance. They bounce on their inflatable raft, wear outrageous hats and skinny dip in the muddy river.
By the end, the awesomeness of the desert canyon swallows up everything. The pace slows. The landscape dominates. A sense of wonder takes over. When the images stop and the words “The End” appear on the film, they say so much more than just the end of the movie.
“How can anything, any reality be this perfect?” asks Katie Lee.
At 90, Lee is the godmother of desert rat environmentalists, a former actress and folksinger who became a lifelong crusader to drain Lake Powell and restore Glen Canyon.
On Thursday, she appeared in Aspen, Colo., and unveiled a home video she shot of her last float trip through Glen Canyon, maybe the last trip anyone took through the expanse of red rock country. Projected onto the big screen at Aspen’s Wheeler Opera House, part of a fund-raiser for KDNK Community Radio, it was the first time the film had ever been shown publicly since 1962.
[more]HICK-UP
Hickenlooper Faces a Skeptical West Slope
During a recent campaign speech on Colorado’s Western Slope, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper paused and asked for a glass of water. Even in this group of supporters, it was the wrong question to ask.
“We gave it all to Denver,” a man in the crowd quipped.
Hickenlooper laughed and spun Colorado’s long-waging water wars into his campaign’s theme of collaboration. But it shows just how different Western Slope politics can be from the Front Range.
[more]TEA PARTY MASSACRE
How the Colorado GOP Killed Its Best Shot at Governor
When Scott McInnis announced his plans to run as a Republican for governor of Colorado in his hometown of Glenwood Springs, he got a hero’s welcome. He looked unstoppable, beaming beside his wife Lori as he called out names of old friends who had turned out to see him in a warehouse on the edge of town decked with campaign signs.
He sported cowboy boots and jeans, and he glowed as country singer Michael Martin Murphy turned “Home on the Range” into a political anthem. As he criticized Democrats and made a plea for “jobs, jobs, jobs,” McInnis seemed to be the right man with the right message for Republicans hoping to make the most of discontent with Democrats and the Obama administration.
McInnis was a natural GOP choice for governor. A former Congressman turned lobbyist, he had name recognition and charisma. He had a successful political track record, and a not-too-far-to-the-right reputation that seemed like an easy sell in a middle-of-the-road state at a time when Democrats were losing their luster.
Then, the unexpected happened.
[more]TELLURIDE MOUNTAINFILM
In ‘Gasland,’ Director Seeks Lessons from West
The film Gasland won the Special Jury Prize for documentary when it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival this year, and it’s been turning heads ever since. The film depicts the journey of director Josh Fox from his home in Pennsylvania, where gas drilling is beginning to boom, to the West, where it has been booming for years. Gasland tells the story of people who say their land, water and their health have been destroyed by the industry.
The documentary has been making the rounds across the country. It’s scheduled to appear on HBO on June 21. We caught up with Fox at Telluride MountainFilm.
NEW WEST: For you this really was personal.
JOSH FOX: It’s personal now. I could have a well pade going in a mile and a half from my house. We’re really, really worried. This is coming and it’s coming full bore and we’re trying to stop it. That’s the truth. The truth is, this activity and an area whrere people live don’t go together.
DRILLING DOWN UNDER
West’s Natural Gas Battles Echo in Australia
The description sounds familiar.
“You’ve found your own slice of heaven, a few acres in the country where you’ve set up home. It’s tranquil, it’s peaceful and you’re living the dream. Then one day the gas company calls and it’s not to read the meter. They’ve come to tell you — not ask you, but to tell you — they’re going to build … a gas well, right in your own backyard, and the law says there’s nothing you can do to stop them.”
It could easily describe the experience of plenty of residents throughout the West. In this case, though, it’s Australia, where a growing number of landowners are facing threats from energy companies coming in to drill for coal bed methane — similar to drilling for methane and natural gas throughout the western United States.
The experiences of Coloradans and other Westerners is helping shape how Australian landowners have responded.
opinion: ABOUT FACE
Arizona’s Message: Don’t Tread on Me, Tread on Them
Sometimes, it seems, our love of hatred is stronger than our love of freedom.
So it is that the brave cowboys in Arizona have proven once again that the most powerful country in the world is also the most frightened. In this case, we’re afraid of poor Mexicans looking for landscaping work.
[more]DYING FOR POWER
The Human Cost of Energy Consumption
The tragic ending to the disaster at the Upper Big Branch Mine serves as a reminder of one of the many tolls of our thirst for energy.
The people of Montcoal, West Virginia would no doubt have been happier if all those satellite trucks had gone away, if all the reporters had stopped pressing microphones at them. If there is a silver lining to this disaster, though, it is that we all know about the tragedy there.
So many who die in the natural gas fields of the West do so anonymously. They die one at a time, in an isolated rig accident. Their names are rarely known. The circumstances of their death are rarely told. But like the miners at the Upper Big Branch, they are dying so we can turn on our lights. Often, they are dying because industry cared more about the resources under the ground than the people who work to get it out.
[more]Officials in Aspen Consider Opening Bear Hunting
Killing Bears to Save Them
Alarmed by the increase in run-ins between bears and humans in the Aspen area, state wildlife officials are considering a plan to dramatically increase the number of bears hunters can kill.
If approved, it would be part of a broader plan meant to reduce bear conflicts, including a volunteer Bear Aware team to discourage trashcans and other things that may attract bears into neighborhoods.
But the proposal has met with criticism from some wildlife advocates.
