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For the price of a boulder

Vail Daily Editorial
Vail CO, Colorado
Special to the Daily"Seat Rock" by Robert Tully
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The windmills were a hoot, though it seems tourists mostly skipped the stroll down the golf course to see the display.

Maybe the problem is this work of art wasn’t gaudy enough. From the freeway, at least, it’s hard to pick out the windmills ” particularly when they’re not spinning or glowing ” out from the trunks of the surrounding barren aspen trees.

The town says all the money it spent was worth the press the installation received from newspapers and TV stations in Denver and around the country. But Vail’s latest venture in public art seems to be a dud all around and unlikely to excite any big city newsrooms.



The town has spent $1,500 on a so-called “seat rock,” which is a boulder that’s had a chunk hacked (artistically) out of it to create a bench. The town reportedly got an 80-percent discount on the “seat rock” that will be placed in Ford Park. You can do the math.

That’s not a ton of money ” even for another one of these pieces of white-noise art that nobody notices but with which Vail seems to be enamored.

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But spending any money at all on a rock with a dent in it makes one wonder how serious the town is when council members and others say they’re struggling to find money to build affordable housing or deal with other problems they present as critical.

Perhaps Vail should abandon public art for a while ” it’s got the spectacular natural setting to please the senses “and puts it money into its problems.

” Matt Zalaznick for the Editorial Board


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