Searching Salvation Update #1

It's been months since I last looked at anything to do with Searching Salvation. The project ended up on the back burner in 2012 as Around the Hat continued to expand and the response grew. As I mentioned in my first post of 2013 though, one of my goals for this year is to finally see this memorial / personal documentary / video poem about the death of my friend Dave and our visit to Salvation Mountain completed.

Looking back at images from our visit to the California desert in 2009 and our following road trip in 2010, the nostalgia trip has been really powerful. Especially after my break from the project, I feel like I'm looking at everything with a renewed sense of euphoria that echoes what the original experience was like. I've almost entirely re-edited my library of Salvation Mountain images for the project as a result. I really just wanted to share that I'm making progress once again and the importance of this project hasn't been lost on me. I'm building on what I already had, and approaching portions of the edit fresh and with greater ambition. 

There's still a lot to do, and I feel a weight from the expectations I've put on myself from what I want to see the finished project become. No matter what though, the goal is now wrapping up this project and finally debuting it by late August / early September 2013 - the 2 year anniversary of Dave's death and coincidentally, the 4 year anniversary of our original road trip. Stay tuned for more as Searching Salvation continues to get back up to speed this spring.

St. Patrick's Church Interior: Bell Tower

It's not everyday that you find yourself climbing the stairs of a hundred year old bell tower and enjoying a rare perspective from the roof of a National Historic Site of Canada. St. Patrick's church in Medicine Hat, Alberta is an iconic structure in the city, and the bell tower showcases some amazing history that not everyone gets the opportunity to see. 


St. Patrick's three original bronze bells still sit at the top of the church's east tower with ropes leading down to a locked box next to the front entrance. They were cast in France in 1913, and each bell features ornate embellishments, including one of St. Patrick himself. The stairs leading up to the bells wrap around the edges of the concrete tower and reminded me of an M.C. Escher drawing. They were noticeably primitive, and each step gave a little as I climbed higher. As I reached the top however, I was blown away by the small space. 

There I was looking up into the steeple of St. Patrick's (see the collage above) and with the small side door to the roof opened, I was given a perspective of the church that I'd never seen before. The sun was blazing, and as stood there in the cool winter air I literally began looking at this familiar location in an entirely new light. One hundred years after it was constructed, the location and architecture didn't fail to captivate me. It gave me a new found appreciation. 

St. Patrick's Bells blessed March 17, 1914. The three bells named Felix Elizabeth, Mary and Mary Adelaide, are installed in the east bell tower. Their respective weights are 2907, 1483.5 and 925.5 pounds. They were cast in ornate, inscripted bronze in Ste. Savoie, France, by G. Paccard & Sons. The three bells constitute a low pitch in keys D, F sharp, and A.

Vintage Satellite Motel Postcard

I was all too happy to find another vintage motel postcard for my collection, this one of the Satellite Motel along the Trans-Canada highway in Medicine Hat. What's cool about this location is that I think the neon sign they have now is actually an improvement over this one that they had in the 1960s. I do prefer the crazy colour scheme the motel had in this postcard though.