What Do You Love?
Small towns around Colorado are changing rapidly. Many long time locals can no longer afford to live where they have spent most of their lives. Many resort towns cannot pay enough to house the workers who fuel their economy. With an influx of people from the Zoom boom this crisis has only grown more dire. Having been born and raised in a small town in Western Colorado, I have seen these shifts happen throughout my lifetime. While climate change is altering the landscapes, newcomers are bringing new ideas and ways of being into the culture.
In this project I set out to find people who consider themselves ‘locals’ to ask them, “What do you love about this town? What makes it special to you?” I ask each person to write their answer in my notebook so that their handwriting becomes a part of their character. We chat, I make a portrait, and then I ask who they could send me to next.
Through a combination of being sent from person to person and wandering, I string together my experiences in the town as an outsider to this place, but a ‘local’ of somewhere else.