WP-3 Rough Draft (Letter to Archie)

Dear "Arch Falls",

Since your conception (circa 1980-81) you've been sort of mystery to myself and others.  Over the past few weeks, you made all the long class days just fly by.  Meditating over you was a blessing that I had never seen coming.  William Shakespeare once stated that "Love sought is good, given unsought, is better."  Coming into this Honors English class I never thought I'd fall in love, but "Arch", sometimes love is best when it's unexpected.


I've become infatuated with your every characteristic "Falls", nearly to the point of obsession.  I realize that Bryan Hunt crafted you himself with his bare hands, but all the time and love that he poured into you will pale in comparison with what I'm prepared to give you.  Still, Hunt's attention to detail is remarkable to me.  There are aspects of you that are very clear and explicit and then there's parts that seem to have so many different perspectives.  I love you "Arch Fall" because you speak to the care-free attitude of Mother Nature as a representational form of a cascading waterfall.


For a long time, I couldn't figure out what you were all about "Falls".  The key to unraveling this mystery was arriving at the conclusion that your beauty lies in the fact that you stand alone, away from the cliff face and river that surely created you, and offer unabashedly offer yourself for the public to see at all angles.  That kind of independence is attractive these days.  


You break away from the mold of all the waterfalls that can be found in nature.  Nowhere else in nature can a waterfall be found without a stream or river providing a source or a cliff behind the falls.  There's also something ironic about your construction.  A waterfall in nature is created by water rushing over a cliff face and ends with the crashing of the water on the rocks below.  You, "Arch Falls", were molded out of plaster and formed by hand, but most importantly you were created from the ground up in order to support the structure throughout the process.  You defy the traditional definition of a water fall in every sense, yet that's the category in which you fall under.  The gap and slit you have, would normally have been formed by a rock or perhaps a branch breaching the water's plane, but yet you are left with these scars with the absence of such obstructions.  Don't be ashamed of such scars, we all have some sort of past and histories as no one is perfect.  The gaps in your cascading falls offer an atheistic value that give you an intriguing appearance and a reflective tone.


There's a simple beauty in someone that's confident.  "Arch Falls", you are left out open in the elements.  You stand bold and tall, allowing anyone curious enough to approach you the rare opportunity to examine a waterfall from angles that would never normally be possible.  You're extraordinary "Arch Falls".  There's an air of surrealism to your photographic values. Waterfalls in nature are constantly flowing, yet once again you contradict your roots by standing still.  For a long time this left me a tad suspicious of you, how was it that a statue frozen in time and made of cast bronze could represent an object in nature made of cascading water?  It's in large part by the texture and ridges present all over your surface.  The handmade curvatures give the impression that the water is just that, water.  The lines are organic and flowing where as the structure of the rocks was rigid and sharp.


It was the Grammy-award winner Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes of the all-female R&B group TLC that described the kind of constant, ever rushing love and passion I feel towards you in the band's song "Waterfalls".  The lyrics, "Don't go chasing waterfalls / Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to", speak towards not chasing our dreams that are simply unattainable and focusing on what's most important to us in our lives.  Well to me that's you "Arch Falls".


"Arch Falls", you and I are perfect for each other.  You may not realize it yet but the fact of the matter is that I complete you.  I'm ready to fill the voids that Hunt left you with rendering you mysterious and largely misunderstood.  I love you "Arch Falls" and I know it may not be able to work out this summer, I mean let's be real here you're bolted to the ground and Sheldon would never let me take you to the south-side of town, but I'll be back in the fall and our love for each other will be that much stronger with time spent apart.


Your Fondest Admirer,
Blake