I can never get enough of downtown El Paso.  I worked there for 8 years back in the 90’s (!) and many of the now vacant buildings were open, bustling even.  To a 20-something kid, it felt like a lot was going on.  Now, much of downtown looks like this store front:

Much of El Paso’s downtown may be old but it has character.  We don’t have a lot of ultra modern buildings so it’s looked the same for decades. The 00’s were kind of tough on our downtown. The downturn in the economy caused a mass exodus of large businesses, hurting the smaller ones that relied on those workers to be there spending money.  I’m bummed that I can’t develop film at Reeds Camera or have a pitcher at Main Street anymore. There’s no more Bridge Gallery for a nice sandwich and art at lunch.  No more Kress to shop at, grab a taco and your pay bills.

Attempts to revitalize have come and gone and the recent burning of the historically significant, First National Bank building, has renewed interest in improving and enforcing building codes.  Despite some stagnation, there has been progress. The Mills Building has been completely rebuilt from the inside out. Transformed from a brown eyesore, The Mills is the crown jewel on the edge of a burgeoning arts district, complete with its own weekend Art Market.

While I’m nostalgic for some of my old haunts, new businesses have opened and have staked their claim in El Paso’s future.  Restaurants like Kipps Cheesestakes and the Percolator have weathered the tough times. In the case of Kipps, they are actually expanding their business to a new eastside location.  If Hotel Baghdad can been refurbished into a Doubletree, there is hope that something better will rise in the burned out location of the First National Bank building.

You could say our city is in a unique period of change… finally. The recent primary battle between longtime incumbent Silvestre Reyes and challenger Beto O’Rourke may have temporarily divided us, but O’Rourke’s win has signaled a more progressive future.  Our downtown has a front row seat to a new direction and will hopefully be better for it.

More pic’s can be found here: Lunchtime Downtown

More pics here: Walking Around

This weekends Cinco De Mayo coincided with a Supermoon. The lunar event marks the closest the moon gets to earth during its orbit. It usually makes for a brighter and larger  full moon and this year it did not disappoint. Using some tips from the internet as well as some settings my friend Vince had used, I tried a couple of test pic’s on the 4th and got pretty good results:

The above shot was captured using a Canon EF-S 55-250mm lens and then cropped in Adobe Lightroom.  The results were pretty good and you can see a lot of details on the moon’s surface.  Since Vince’s tests came out as good we decided we would try and setup somewhere in the desert and try to capture the Supermoon on Saturday.

Saturday proved to be somewhat of a challenge.  There was cloud cover on the Franklin Mountains and we weren’t quite sure where the moon was going to arrive over.  He had met at my house and were getting our stuff packed and missed that the moon had come through the clouds. it had been obscured by a two story house next door.  We quickly scrambled and headed for the hills by the Sunland Park airport.

The orange color is interesting and while I used the same settings I’d used in my tests, the moon was fuzzier in all of our shots.  This was the best of my batch.  I guess the color change or cloud haze might have caused some focusing issues.

We goofed around with some other shots, yielding mixed results.  This was the best of my long shots trying to get the city lights and mountains in the shot.  Next year we’ll be better prepared and try again.

I was driving down Mesa and happened to be passing by the Westside Church of Christ’s sign. It has always prominently displays some uplifting message.  Now, if you have lived on the Westside of El Paso, like me you will probably not remember a time when they’ve not done this. They are the original Twitter account for God.

I can recall from way back when while riding the bus to Moorhead Junior High, us hooligans often would try and twist the phrases into something funny or gross. Hilarity and disrespect would always ensue.  After a while you tend to dismiss them but its always amazing that as far as I know they never repeated themselves even on the sign itself. Here’s the same day’s flip side:

That takes some kind of skill but I guess with a Bible in hand, you can wrangle phrases all day long and not be duplicative. Personally, I’m more excited about the sign just down the street:

Charcoaler now has bacon! Hallelujah!

On my way in to work today, I spied something odd sitting at a bus stop at Country Place and Country Club Road.  Driving by it looked like a person covered in cellophane:

I instantly thought of Mark Jenkins and turned around to check it out.  Parking was kind of dicey though, Country Club is a two lane street that is kind of a mess in the morning.  Props to whoever did this, it certainly was collecting a bunch of stares from the morning commuters that passed by.  Upon closer inspection, there was a few things that were a little off…time for an impromptu art critique!

Jekins’ balloon pieces work because their interaction with the surroundings is subtle but integral to the piece as a whole, the piece below is an example:

The bent bus stop becomes the perfect prop for the balloon boy to pull down.  The illusion works because the angles and proportions are correct fooling your mind into believing the impossible.  I had initially thought that maybe the anonymous artist might have reconstructed the bus stops signage to be incorporated into the message but that’s not the case. Its a simple advertisement for insurance.  So what is the message here?

Scrawled in black sharpie are several words:

Fat, Disproportional, Dunce, Thunder Thighs, Empty, Cow

Note, I would have not known this by simply driving by.  The text isn’t large enough to discern from the street.  The intent may have been to draw the viewer in but without adequate parking most people will go on with their lives.

If you did stop you would notice the figure appears to be female so in that context the words are some sort of play on two possible obvious themes. One, disparaging remarks made unto the sculpture as a reflection of the artist being treated by others or Two, a inward projection out, of how the artist feels about themselves. There is a crumpled bag of Funyuns under its right hand so we might have a clue.

Now to me that presents a bit of a problem. Are you fat and have thunder thighs because you eat junk food all the time? Do you eat junk food because you feel empty causing you to be fat thus fulfilling your our self hate prophecy? Was the Funyuns bag just trash that happened to be there during the installation.  As the viewer we don’t know. There’s not enough information.  Using big heavy rocks to hold the sculpture in place, breaks up the continuity of the piece as well and distracts from the intended message.  The black X across the heart may have any number of meanings but the X on the right thigh only confuses that.  Is the whole thing some sort of “Anti Bully Message” that’s all the rage in schools these days? Who knows.

I will say this, I did stop and take a look so in that regard the piece was successful. Despite some presentation and constructions problems it did make me snap a few pictures and write about it so the joke may be on me.  Well there may be a few other people who get duped into taking a look at it.  As I was leaving, I heard sirens in the distance but couldn’t place the direction.  Traveling up Country Club over the Rio Grande bridge, an ambulance passed heading towards the bus stop quickly followed by a fire truck.  I guess somebody else saw it but didn’t have the time top stop and check it out before reporting it to the authorities, funny.  Score one for guerrilla art!

Full Set of photos here: The Fat Dunce