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The entry at the Copper Art Museum in Clarkdale.
Gary Every | Nugget
Examples of the shell casings. Gary Every | Nugget
The relatively new Copper Art Museum has opened its doors for business in Clarkdale, Ariz., taking up residence in the old high school. Clarkdale was founded as a company town back in 1912 by Senator W.A. Clark who was known as “America’s Copper King”. The town was built expressly for the purpose of mass producing copper and sending it all over the globe. Clarkdale certainly has the look of an old company town, most of the buildings are the same age. The former high school that now houses the museum has that old historic building feel. The museum can’t be missed, the north wall has a reproduction of Botticelli’s famous painting of Venus on the Half Shell with a copper colored female symbol inserted into the large mural. The image is quite striking, the clam shell rising out of the water and painted like Arizona’s state flag with Venus demurely holding the female copper symbol.
The story behind altering this iconic painting to create the mural on the side of the building is revealed inside the museum. In the classical European world, the copper mines in Crete were the richest in the region. Botticelli’s painting of Venus rising from the ocean is placed on a beach in Crete. The oft quoted quip, “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus,” comes from the ancient Greek world, where men are from Mars and ruled by iron, while women were from Venus and ruled by copper. Interesting tidbits such as this can be learned in the information room which has maps of copper mines across the globe. There is a breakdown of how much and where copper is mined on every continent. There were displays explaining how important copper was in man’s early history. Both copper and tin were necessary to create a Bronze Age. My favorite part of the information room were the many mineral specimens of copper that were displayed there along with examples of malachite, turquoise, chrysocolla and others. The rocks are beautiful.
There are rooms dedicated to Art and Architecture, with copper ceiling panels, vases and fine art. There was another room dedicated to religious art but some of the rooms which really slowed the pace were those dedicated to the culinary arts. Not only were all the items on display made of copper but many of the kitchen items were decades old and some centuries old. It was neat to explore kitchen items which once used to be commonplace, all of them oddly shaped and some of which I was not certain how to use or what for. All the antique kitchen items were made of gleaming copper, including the highly polished copper stove in the corner. There were many wine chillers on display, embossed with elaborate designs, some of them centuries old. There were charts and photos supplied by local Verde Valley Vineyards, explaining how copper is an essential soil nutrient for those hoping to turn grapes into fine wine. Especially striking among the culinary ware was an 1850s cognac still, kettles and tubes built of bright gleaming copper.
One room of the Copper Art Museum is for displaying Military Art. A wall with a series of large photographs explains that much of the artillery used in World War I, especially the shell casings were made of copper. World War I was a horrible war and millions of rounds of artillery were fired. There were enormous piles of spent casings. When the war had ended, some enterprising artists gathered up these spent shell casing and created cheap and beautiful souvenirs for the war weary soldiers to take home after the war. With blocks of wood and little hammers these enterprising artists created beauty out of horror. Some shell casings wore images of flowers and grapes, others listed the sights of famous battles and campaigns. Shell casings adorned with religious symbols were very popular but just as popular were nature pictures, flowers, and animals. Many of the animals were symbolic of the nations fighting the war – lions for England and roosters for France. The Copper Art Museum has over 525 examples of these antique artistic artillery shell casings.
Inside a glass case, beside funky spiked helmets and other copper adornments was a crucifix with Jesus nailed to a cross made of bullets. I was extremely moved by this piece of homemade art, imagining a reluctant soldier who wondered why man inflicted the horrors of war upon his fellow man.
We were moving slowly through the Copper Art, following the copper footsteps as we took our time examining all the copper artifacts on display. Even the hallways were filled with decades old magazine advertisements and industrial posters extolling the virtues of copper. Returning back near the entrance there are photos depicting the life of this building back in its former heyday, when the hallways were filled with bustling high school students. The wall is adorned with images, photos and yearbook displays from the early decades of the twentieth century when the Clarkdale high school was filled with students, most of whose parents earned their paychecks manufacturing copper to be shipped around the globe.
Gary Every is an award winning author who has won consecutive Arizona Newspaper Awards for best lifestyle feature for pieces “The Apache Naichee Ceremony” and “Losing Geronimo’s Language”. The best of the first decade of his newspaper columns for The Oracle newspaper were compiled by Ellie Mattausch into a book titled Shadow of the OhshaD. Mr. Every has also been a four time finalist for the Rhysling Award for years best science fiction poetry. Mr. Every is the author of ten books and his books such as Shadow of the Ohshad or the steampunk thriller The Saint and The Robot are available either through Amazon or www.garyevery.com.
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