We spent today in Jerome, an old mining town north of here and enough higher that
walking around outside was tolerable, even in the middle of the day. They call it
a ghost town, but it's not really, since it's got a population of 500 or so.
Still, it had 15000 at its peak, so there are lots of old empty buildings - though
fewer than you'd expect. It's built into the side of Mingus Mountain, on top of
several faults that were aggravated by the mining activities, so old buildings
have a tendency to slide on down the montain. It's become a home for artists now,
with its main streets lined with galleries.
The Jerome State
Historical Park, in an old mining mogul's mansion, was definitely worth the $4
charged; the Gold King Mine and Museum as definitely not, unless you enjoy looking
at old machinery sitting out in the sun.
The galleries were much
better than I remember them from our last visit, with lots of cool glass,
metalwork, and pottery, and fewer boring paintings. I realize this may betray my
own philistinism, but I also suspect that a medium-good glassworker can make
something far more interesting and beautiful than a medium-good painter. On the
other hand, a painter who is more than medium-good can say far more in a painting
than any glassblower. Therefore, the sort of galleries Jerome has are more likely
to be interesting when they focus on glasswork and other arts of a similar nature,
though this is not necessarly true of museums that can get the really good stuff.
In the interests of decorating myself and my house without making my checkbook and
ugly thing, I restrained myself to two purchases; a pair of earrings and an egg-
shaped lump of glass -- a paperweight, I suppose. Naturally, both are of dichroic
glass. If I ever have scads of money to spend there, though, I may have to go back
to where I bought the latter, to invest in some truly spectacular kaleidoscopes.
(Including, naturally, some made with dichroic glass!)