Drop City: the legend and the legacy



UPDATE:  A documentary about Drop City and its inspiration is in progress.  Production has begun and a "KickStarter" campaign has been launched to fund this exciting project.  Please donate what you can, so the film will go forward.  See a video trailer and pledge info here:  http://kck.st/9uk7Ed  Thanks.

Clark Richert's Preview of Drop City - 1967

Most of us have heard of it.  The image resonates, in my mind, with the philosophy of the 60s, a nebulous state of cool.  But what was Drop City.. a city of drop-outs or Timothy Leary’s acid-dropping experiment?  Or T.C. Boyle's wayward book of the same name?

Nope, it was none of these.

 

Drop City was an intentional community formed in the hills near Trinidad, Colorado in 1965, the inspiration of artists Clark Richert, Gene and Jo Ann Bernofsky, and Richard Kallweit who just wanted to escape the system, live rent free and focus on their art.  It was a scrubby goat pasture they bought for $450, and the "first rural hippie commune."

Known for its geodesic dome-style architecture, combining the principles of Buckminster Fuller with salvaged car roofs and old telephone poles, Drop City* became an icon of rural communal living.  In 1967, fourteen residents lived with the land and created paintings, sculptures, furniture, and the domes, works of art themselves.  Eventually, nine domes, including the Icosadome, the kitchen, theater, and the Triple dropped onto the horizon.  The droppers lived to their hearts content, with no intention of becoming a large community. But, media coverage and the Joy Festival in June 1967 attracted hundreds of hippies, and Drop City grew.  

According to Gene Bernofsky,  "...we were not models, hippies, or a commune. Those trademarks are strictly the invention of establishment media." 

But, like it or not, the Droppers had the kind of visionary optimism that would soon characterize the entire hippie movement.  Jo Ann Bernofsky says, "We knew that we wanted to do something outrageous and we knew we wanted to do it with other people. . . . It was full of vitality… exciting and wonderful. You had the sense that anything was possible."

To Clark Richert, inspired by Mark Rothko and Bucky Fuller, his own limitless art/science sensibilities and the junk yards of southern Colorado, Drop City was his passion.  He remembers the synergetic interaction between artists and residents that created experimental expression. 

Since 1973, he has worked as an artist, geometer, philosopher, and professor at the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design.  In February, Clark presented a highly acclaimed retrospective of his work, “1960 – Present,” in Denver.  This summer, he was honored as participant in the Biennial of the Americas. 

One of Clark’s current goals is to develop another creative-person community, and soon.  Drop City may rise again!

            *In 1967, Drop City won Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion award for innovative and economic housing construction.

http://www.dropcitydoc.com/Watch_the_Trailer.html

 http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=pondchadwick&annotation_id=annotation_203430&feature=iv#p/a/u/0/Nb-DbSGg4Qg