I think it is a tie. What is America’s greatest art form? In France it is arguably painting. In Italy, sculpture. In Spain it is the simple art of living well. In America, I would say that it is either film-making or the art of architecture, gardens and trails set in the context of nature. This last thing evokes thoughts of Frank Lloyd Wright. The roots of the art-form can be found in places like the Alhambra in Granada, the Islamic Caliphs of the middle ages did it very well, but my favorite examples are to be found largely in the western US and a few places elsewhere in America in the works of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Examples that come to mind are Watkins Glenn in upstate New York, the Going to the Sun Highway in Montana’s Glacier National Park, the trail system of the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona, Zion Lodge in southern Utah, and the highway along Big Sur on the central Californian coast. Perhaps the greatest example of that period of design and construction, also created as a 1930’s era massive civil works project, is the Hoover Dam located adjacent to Southern Nevada.
The CCC was established in response to the Great Depression as a way of putting Americans to work. They worked on many strictly utilitarian projects, responding to storm damage, water shortages brought on by the drought conditions of the depression era, and that sort of thing, but also importantly constructed some of the most beautiful places in America. Maybe because of a lot of exposure when I was young I find it almost uniformly wonderful. The style reflects an era as well as the aesthetic of finding a comfortable balance between human use and the natural greatness of place. Although not a CCC project, the Hoover Dam, built between 1931 and 1936, and Boulder City were constructed in the same way by the same category of workers. The town, created to house both the workers and the administration of the project, continues to be integrated with the dam, more so than with metropolitan Las Vegas just a few minutes away. Much of the town center consists of houses and commercial buildings built to support dam construction. The balance between conserving this history versus growth of the town is a constant aspect of the perhaps overly vibrant small-town politics.
Boulder City is also where I live for parts of the year, shuttling back and forth between there and Park City, Utah. It is a very quiet town and my favorite place, free of distractions, to get work done. The town has a step back into time quality with a large number of historic houses and buildings and depression era restored cars often on the streets. In a lot of ways it is the opposite of Las Vegas, remaining just a small town, because of a local growth ordinance, and despite being located between one of the most visited cities in the country and the dam, one of the most visited attractions in the country.
Our place here, located on the edge of the desert, provides a nice balance between a place to live and the nature around it. The owners before us, a geologist and a wildlife artist, established a small artificial pond and took down the wall separating the back yard from the desert in order to attract and photograph wildlife. We have kept up the pond and kept down the wall and have enjoyed visits from coyotes, various rabbits, roadrunners, coopers and other species of hawks, ravens, vultures, merlin and peregrine falcons, a desert tortoise, lots of various lizards, quail, antelope squirrels, bats, some nasty insects, and a large number of song birds, some of which are year-round and others only visit for a few days every year. So far no snakes. Between ourselves and the previous owners the pond has now been around for seventeen years, so the visits are common, especially in the hottest months of summer with temperatures often exceeding 110 degrees. Elsewhere in the town a large population of bighorn sheep can be found crossing streets and in a small park during much of the year. I’ve also taken to desert gardening and no trip to Boulder City goes without tending to plants and repairing water emitters damaged by rabbits.
I’ve put up a couple of galleries of photography from Boulder City. Which can be found in the Southern Nevada albums in my photography galleries. A lot of these are just shots taken of the pond, the backyard, and the backyard plants and animals. I’m particularly fond of one ash tree and the birds that it attracts. Although the pond was initially set up for photography of the animals, I’ve yet to set up long lens cameras for shooting the wildlife but will get around to it some day soon. The Southern Nevada photos are from walks around town, visits to the dam and Lake Mead, the reservoir behind the dam, or hikes or kayak trips in Black Canyon below the dam, the Valley of Fire, a Nevada State Park, or other areas nearby. We even have a ghost town, an old gold mine, not far away. These galleries are likely to grow because I probably spend more time walking around Southern Nevada than anywhere else.