Can lessons from ecology offer a way to find common ground in our polarized nation?
Susan J. Tweit
Tiny houses won’t solve our affordable housing problem
In Salida, Colorado, little homes come with a big price tag.
Western literary journals give voice to story and place
“We are out loud and proud as a regional journal,” says poet Maria Melendez, publisher of Pilgrimage, a literary magazine based in the former steel-mill city of Pueblo, Colo. “Our mission is to nurture the voices of the Southwest — and beyond.” Literary journals like Pilgrimage are devoted to publishing inspiring and innovative fiction, nonfiction […]
Water across the Divide
How the failure of an aged ditch got in the way of Wilderness
Must our water always flow uphill toward money?
I’ve given up drinking bottled water. It’s so wasteful: Up to three quarts of water are used for each quart bottled. Also, it consumes 67 million barrels of oil annually on its journey from source to consumer, and sends 2 million tons of plastic bottles to landfills. It’s especially wasteful in arid country like the […]
Christo in Colorado would be a very good thing
Art, it has been said, provokes a response by revealing the familiar in new light. By that definition, “Over the River,” the project on southern Colorado’s Arkansas River envisioned by artists Christo and Jeanne Claude, is already a success, even though it has yet to be approved and installation is almost four years away. “Over […]
Healing the border with words
Denise Chávez believes that art can — and should — make a difference in everyday lives. “Why is the arts community so mute?” asks Chávez. “On the one hand, it’s a terrible time — people are so fearful, afraid of each other, afraid of people who are different, afraid to learn something new. But it’s […]
Cano’s Vision
Just outside the small town of Antonito, in southern Colorado’s sparsely populated San Luis Valley, a highway sign points to the state’s oldest church, a twin-towered sanctuary built of brick and local dark volcanic rock. A bit farther on, the towers of a very different sanctuary rise over a dusty neighborhood on the other side […]
A mountain of books becomes a library of the land
Names Jeff Lee and Ann Martin Vocations Bookseller and graphic artist Home Base Denver, Colorado Claim to Fame Founders of the Rocky Mountain Land Library She says “This is just Jeff’s kind of project. I go day to day, he has the big vision.” “To really know the West, to be at home here,” says […]