Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming...

This morning I woke up in Ten Sleep, Wyoming, a tiny town of 304 people rising out of the sweeping western plains. Why I was there and where I’m going next are a tale for another blog post though- this one is meant to catch up on where I’ve been.

Somewhere on the road from Colorado to Oregon...

Before leaving on my current adventure, I drove out from Colorado to Terrebonne, Oregon, a small town located near Smith Rock State Park. Ever since I started climbing, I’ve heard people tell stories of the incredible, technical climbing on small holds with huge run-outs at Smith, and I always thought that it sounded like a place I could really enjoy myself (minus the run-outs). My interest was further piqued when I began to learn the history of the place-- which really is the history of the beginning of sport climbing in America.

Before any bolting occurred there, Smith existed as a trad climbing mecca. However, once the climbers started running out of cracks and corners to climb with natural protection, they began looking to the blank rock faces in between. In the late 70s, the climbing pioneer Alan Watts bolted the first sport climb on American soil-- a 5.12 he called “Watts Totts.” Not too long after, in the early 80s, Watts bolted a 12c called “Chain Reaction,” a route that was to draw national, and even international, interest to the area. The route, an extremely photogenic steep arete, was photographed extensively and even featured on the cover of Time magazine. To this day, Smith remains as one of the most visited crags in America by international climbers.

Other notable Smith Rock history bits include Alan Watts climbing the 5.13d “East Face Crack” in 1984 with natural protection (at the time 13d was the hardest climb anywhere in the world- one of the few times American crags have been at the cutting edge level equal to European standards) and the first 5.14 in America, called “To Bolt or Not to Be,” in 1986, first climbed by the Frenchman JB Tribout.

The start to "Heinous Cling," a 12a I climbed... the first bolt is so high up, it's out of view

History aside, I was just excited to climb at a place full of crimps and vertical angles. I was not in the least bit disappointed-- when I arrived at the beginning of June, the climbing felt honest and hard, the bolts were few and far between, and the holds were as small as any I’d ever grabbed. In addition, Smith Rock State Park is just eye-poppingly gorgeous. Otters swim lazily down gently rushing rivers, hoards of snakes bask in the sun, horses graze on distant verdant hillsides, towering cliffs of volcanic tuff rise out from manicured trails, and eagles, vultures, and cliff sparrows populate the sky.

I got to vicariously revisit a little bit of history when Jonathan Siegrist repeated “Just Do It,” which in 1992 was the first 14c in the country. The feature it climbs on, a freestanding tower called The Monkey Face, is undoubtedly one of the most inspiring and unique pieces of rock I’ve seen anyone climb on.

Jonathan on "Just Do It"

From Oregon, we drove to Seattle, trading in Smith’s volcanic tuff for the “rhino rock” (as the locals call it) of Little Si. Humid, dark, and moss-covered trails lead to the edgy, resistance climbing on slightly overhanging walls. After feeling in my element on the vertical crimps at Smith, I quickly got put in my place after only a few bolts of the steep, endurance climbing at Little Si.

While at Little Si, I belayed Jonathan on a long-standing open project that extends a 14b called "Whore of Babylon." As he says on his blog, "After climbing the majority of WOB, including it's v10 crux, you continue into the meat of 'Lost Horizons' 14a, ending some 45+ meters above the deck.” He sent the route after I flew home to Boulder, calling it "New World Order," 14c.

From the cool damp of Seattle to the dry heat of Wyoming, the road keeps unfurling and the adventure continues. As my dear friend Katrina has tattooed on her torso underneath a drawing of silhouetted birds that I designed for her, “There is no greater joy than an endlessly changing horizon.” The quote was adapted from Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, from the excerpt below:

"Make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty."

In a group show that opened on Friday, the David B Smith Gallery in Denver brought together five artists with differing mediums that shared a unitive theme of exploring the human relationship with nature in one way or another. From large installations that cover numerous city blocks to images made from scotch tape on chalkboards, the varying work peered into the changing face of the natural world resulting from human impact. “All of the artists that are here relate their work back to nature, consumption, and the way that we as humans inhabit the earth and use resources,” said gallery owner David Smith.

Read the rest of my review and see photos of the art here.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing one of my favorite artists, Nathan Spoor, for one of my favorite publications, Juxtapoz. Spoor just opened his first solo show in two years, aptly named The Phantom Passport. The show runs through June 4th at Bold Hype in New York, where his paintings buzz with activity, detail and color, while maintaining a placid stillness amidst the chaos. I caught up with Spoor to ask him a few questions about his work- read the interview here.

I also attended an opening of Los Angeles-based artist Kris Lewis' work at the David B. Smith Gallery in Denver. Lewis masterfully blends traditional portraiture with a stylized modern edge, resulting in emotion laden subjects brimming with mystery and depth. I interviewed him for another publication I love, Hi-Fructose Magazine. Read it here.

Reflections

sunset off the coast of the Dominican Republic

Last year at this time, I had just returned home from sailing the Caribbean on the Research Vessel Heraclitus and wandering 'round Guatemala for a few weeks. I started off that trip with hopes of finding direction, yet as often happens, my expectations were unfulfilled and I was met with the exact opposite of what I had planned. Rather than returning home steady, motivated, and fired up with purpose, I collapsed onto my couch, horrendously ill, with my ego even more shaky than when I had set out.

the shores of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala

Looking back at that tumultuous time, I'm immensely grateful for the collapse of my rigidly constructed paradigm. The rubble of my old self made room for new experiences and a more authentic version of me to emerge from the ruins. The phenomenon of "failure" and struggle bringing immense gifts is something that I have experienced so much that I've become more able to appreciate it in the moment, rather than only being able to see the benefits with the clarity of hindsight.

Speaking of hindsight and failure and all that- I guess I should rewind a bit to cover my last trip to Vegas. After all that talk in my previous post about 'High Flames Drifter,' I decided not to go to the Virgin River Gorge to try it again (at least not until the cliff is in season again).

Until we meet again High Flames... (Andy Mann photo)

This was a hard decision to make, but while I was camping and climbing amid the deserted quiet of the Cathedral in Utah, I decided that I didn't miss the roaring highway noise of the VRG and that I should spend my ten day trip trying some new routes.

lovely desert desolation

As much as I wanted to send High Flames, I'm really happy I decided to stay at the Cathedral instead. The atmosphere there is in many ways idyllic- quiet, lonely desert views with cliff swallows and kestrels swooping down through the dry breeze. Not to mention amazing climbing.

My good friend Katy Dannenberg climbing at the Wailing Wall

Not obsessing over sending High Flames also allowed me the time to climb a multi-pitch in Red Rocks, something I've wanted to do again ever since climbing the ultra-fun, classic 'Prince of Darkness' last year. Superhero climber Jonathan Siegrist and I decided to try 'Rock Warrior' a 5.10 R/X on the Black Velvet Wall, just next to 'Prince of Darkness.'

a stormy day at the Black Velvet Wall

Before I even left the ground, I was stressed and adrenalized from belaying Jonathan on the first pitch. He unknowingly started at the wrong place, putting himself on an incredibly run out 5.11 slabby pitch of sloper crimps and smeary little feet. The remaining five pitches also were almost as run out as the first, making me very happy that I was leaving the leading to a pro.

Red Rocks beauty

We also spent a day climbing at Arrow Canyon, a really unique little crag that you reach by hiking through a beautiful limestone slot canyon, complete with petroglyphs.

'Tangled Up in Blue,' 12a, at Arrow Canyon

Since then, I've been back in Boulder packing up my life in preparation for my move to San Francisco in the fall to attend grad school. I've finally found that sense of purpose I was so desperate for last spring, but it only came after I surrendered to the unfolding process of decay and regeneration.

As one of my favorite Buddhist teachers, Reginald Ray, says, "You can either strive to be perfect or you can strive to be whole. If you strive to be whole, you have to surrender to your process. You have to surrender to the seasons of your own psyche, of your own internal working. You have to give yourself room to be in darkness, to be depressed. You have to give yourself room to be tired. You have to give yourself room to be completely uninspired. And you have to realize that allowing yourself to be depressed, tired and totally uninspired is the ultimate trust in the universe."

Friend of Salvador Dalí, former apprentice of Ernst Fuchs, and husband of artist Martina Hoffman, Boulder painter Robert Venosa has lived his life in the sort of rich artistic atmosphere that few ever experience. As he says on his website, "At various times I had Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Jackie Kennedy and the good doctor Timothy Leary himself peering over my shoulder to see what I was up to.”

Read my article on Venosa's life and work here.

the view of Red Rocks from Turtlehead Mountain just outside of Las Vegas

Lately I've noticed an interesting correlation. It seems to me that the more profound of an experience I have while climbing, the more cliche and trite it sounds when I try to share it with others. I think that this can often be the case when we try to relate personal experiences that have effected us in subtle yet powerful ways. When we try to put words to aspects of life that are outside of the logical and verbal realms of our mind, so much is lost in translation. So although I realize that many of the breakthroughs and reflections that I've gained through climbing will remain fully understood only by me (and even that isn't guaranteed!), I'm still going to continue trying to communicate at least some small part of why climbing is such a potent force in my life.

So here I go.

We're all familiar with the idea that our moments of greatest growth occur when we don't get what we want. It's something everybody has heard from a well-intentioned friend in a disgruntled moment, usually when it's the last thing we want to hear. Then later, after hours or days or weeks have passed, we can see that in truth the undesirable circumstance really did force us to push against the boundaries of our hopes and fears, desires and aversions. In a nutshell, that's what I experienced climbing at the infamous Virgin River Gorge during a month-long stay in Las Vegas.

Jonathan Siegrist crushing at the VRG

Located near the borders of Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, the VRG is known to be one of the highest quality, most difficult crags in the country. Overlooking the roaring lanes of traffic on interstate highway I-15, the limestone cliffs offer a variety of brilliant, difficult climbing.

It didn't take long for the VRG to stir up some really unpleasant emotions in me. It first began when I looked around me and noticed that everyone at the crag was strong enough to warm up on whatever I would end up projecting. Having learned to climb around superhuman climbers, this is something I should be used to, but my ego just hates being the worst at anything. Regardless, I decided to try High Flames Drifter, a 12c that everyone agreed was difficult for the grade. If I were to succeed, it would be my one of my most difficult climbs to date.

me on High Flames

After days of one-hanging the route, I felt entirely confident that I would redpoint on my next try. I climbed through the crux feeling poised and strong, with only a clip and then one more hard move and remaining between me and success. But when I went to clip, due to some minor shift in my body position, the rope got caught behind my leg (this can be very dangerous because it can cause you to flip upside down and hit your head on the wall). Being so close to success, I fought to get the rope out from behind my leg so that I could make the clip. My arms quickly grew tired from grasping such small holds. My grip weakened, my fingers slipped, and then I was upside down, falling through the air, colliding with the wall. Luckily I had a very experienced belayer who helped keep me from hitting my head, and I escaped with some bruises and cuts, and a rope burn on my leg that is now a purplish scar.

After taking this pretty scary fall, I just couldn't get my head right. With the knowledge that I was leaving the area in a few days, I tried the route a handful of other times, but it was always with a sense of dread and trepidation. Before getting on the route for the last time, I had a mini-emotional breakdown, crying because I knew that I didn't have what it would take at that moment to send.

Andy Mann photo

Somehow, failure in climbing touches the most vulnerable and insecure part of me, a place that nothing else can reach. In that moment of accepting failure, I felt such a wrenching sense of disappointment and defeat. My deepest feelings of self-doubt were activated and my most painful wounds of feeling worthless or unworthy were probed. It was shocking to look into myself and see such feelings that I usually keep successfully buried.

I'm going back to try the route again in a few days, with hopes of being able to successfully clip the chains this time. Whether or not that happens, this route has affected me in a way that goes beyond the physical act of climbing. Through failing, I was able to break through innumerable layers of walls and boundaries that I usually keep between my awareness and those deeply buried feelings. I was able to see a part of myself that I didn't know existed, a part that needs to be acknowledged so that it can heal. In the end, I'm glad I took that upside down fall instead of sending like I'd hoped. Failing gifted me the opportunity to know myself in a more holistic way than I previously had.

While I love the social and fun aspects of climbing, it's experiences like this one that have ignited a passion and commitment to the sport in me. Climbing provides a painfully clear mirror in which I can see myself reflected, allowing me to learn and grow. And that's what it's all about in the end.

Warhol in Colorado

Born in 1928 in Pittsburgh as the third child of immigrant parents, Andy Warhol suffered through his childhood as an outcast and a hypochondriac. It seemed unlikely then that this often bed-ridden child would one day rise to fame as one of the leading figures of the pop art movement.

With his portrayal of mass-produced products, mundane objects and celebrities from American popular culture, Warhol achieved massive success as a painter, sculptor and prolific filmmaker. In 1963, his piece “Eight Elvises” sold for $100 million, a feat achieved by only a handful of other artists, including Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock.

Warhol survived a gunshot wound from a dramatic attempted murder in 1968, only to die from a routine gallbladder surgery in 1987. In his will, he bequeathed almost his entire estate to creating a foundation dedicated to the advancement of visual art. The result was The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, which focuses primarily on supporting artistic work of a challenging and often experimental nature.

In 2008, The Foundation gave 156 of Warhol’s photographs to the University of Colorado’s Art Museum. The museum premiered 112 of the pieces on Jan. 21 and will continue showing them until June 25.

To read the rest of my article, click here.

Internationally recognized Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira created a site specific installation piece at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art that will be on display until mid June.

Oliveira works primarily with reused strips of pliable fencing wood that commonly surround construction sites in his hometown of São Paulo. He often uses this medium to explore the texture of thick gestural brushstrokes that one would find in an oil painting. Oliveira compares this concept to taking a small corner of a densely textured painting and enlarging it to the size of a wall, allowing the viewer to see the subtle details of a brushstroke.

Read my review of the show here.

Ice climbing in Ouray, Colorado

Ouray, Colorado is one of the most popular ice climbing destinations in the world. The town's canyons boast over a mile of ice jaggedly draped over its cliff faces, the majority of which is "farmed" ice. Metal piping runs over the tops of these canyons, allowing the town to turn the water on every few nights. The water runs down the cliffs and freezes into thick sheets of ice in some places and beautiful yet slightly terrifying icicles in others.

I've managed to be a climber for three years and avoid ice climbing all the while, but last weekend I finally caved and gave it a try. I was incredibly pleasantly surprised.

Turns out, ice climbing is neither as cold, miserable, scary, or difficult as I had imagined. Sure, there were times during the weekend that I could use any and all of those adjectives to describe my experience, but for the most part, I was only partially freezing and mostly enjoying myself.

I felt very fortunate to have a very experienced and patient friend introduce me to the sport. Knowing that I'm safe makes all the difference for me in being able to push myself physically and mentally at a new and potentially dangerous sport.

The group I was with rented out the entire Historic Western Hotel, which has been open since the 1890's. The ambiance was musty and the decor was an antiquated mix between Victorian and rustic. The creaking floor boards rose and feel like waves, the hallways were narrow and uninviting, and everywhere the eyes of people in old photos followed you as you walked by. It was equal parts creepy and fascinating.

Here's just a tiny portion of the hotel's vast collection of eerie, dusty animal pelts and heads.

I finished the weekend by following my friend up an 150 foot climb called "Tangled Up in Blue." The satisfying sensation of puncturing the ice with an ice ax in just the right way so that it goes in deeply and securely enough that you can pull your whole body weight up by it was addicting. Imagine stabbing thick styrofoam with a butter knife, now imagine the same sensation but many, many more times the physical effort. Fun.

I particularly enjoyed the crumbling blocks of ice that fell down on my head with every other whack of the ax, even though that cost me a bleeding lip and a bruised nose. More than anything, I appreciated finding yet another excuse to get out into a remote, pristine location and bond with good people while reveling in nature's beauty. That to me is really the heart of climbing, whether rock or ice.

Here's my most recent commission- a concert poster for Boulder-based rock 'n' roll band Rose Hill Drive's New Years shows. Since they'll be covering the White Stripes, I figured I would throw in a zebra for good measure.

Click on it to view a larger version.

Based out of San Francisco, Juxtapoz magazine is without question my paramount source for inspiration and education about what's happening in the ever-evolving world of low-brow or pop surrealist art. For this reason, I was incredibly excited to write a review for them of the super talented mixed media artist Robert Hardgrave's show "Relic," which recently opened in Denver at the David B. Smith gallery. I even managed to sneak into some of the photos. Read it and view it here!