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The Barn at Taylor's Acre     The Barn Mural at Templeton Gap & Fillmore in Colorado Springs   Family: C Robert Taylor (d. 1996) and wife, Dessie Taylor (d. 2009) Children: Dessie Bob (eldest daughter, murdered by police husband June 1980) (4 sons) Bob Brent, Shannon, Tory, Cecil M, and youngest daughter... Tamara (graduated Wasson 1974) All children moved out of state, except Cecil, who stayed in Colorado Springs, until moving to Pueblo West after property was sold. 1. BARN QUOTES AND MURALS 1972 - We are proud to be Americans :: (mural by family: US flag) 1976 - When is the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another - Thomas Jefferson :: (mural by family: Rainbow without turtles/ pot of gold/ earth /Colorado flag and Don't tread on me flag) 1977? - Be of love a little more careful than of anything else. :: (mural by family: Rainbow/turtles/pot of gold/earth) 1978 - God intended that we reap from the earth not rape it. :: (mural by family: Rainbow/ turtles/ pot of gold/earth) 1979 - Happiness is the whole journey, not just a destination :: (mural by family/lettering by Kass: rainbow/turtles/pot of gold/earth) 1980 - Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love & to work & to play, And to look up at the stars. :: (mural by Kass Johns: Tree with couple) – 1981 same 1982 - Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in our own sunshine. :: (mural by Kass Johns: peacock) 1983 - Love is found by those who can live with human nature as it is. :: (mural by Kass Johns: Peacock) 1984 - What the caterpillar thinks is the end of life, the butterfly knows is the beginning. :: (mural & lettering by Kass Johns: Butterfly) 1986 - The most substantial things that we can give our children are wings and roots. :: (mural by Kass Johns: butterfly/state outline with kids’ locations) 1987 - You are a child of the universe No less than the trees and the stars; You have the right to be here, And whether or not it is clear to you, No doubt the Universe is unfolding as it should. :: (mural by Kass Johns: universe/outer space/earth/sun) 1989 - One must take part in the passion and action of one’s time at peril of being judged not to have lived. :: (mural by Kass Johns: purple mountains/green hills) 1991 - It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting sea shells, than to be born a millionaire. - RL Stevens :: (mural by Kass Johns: Ocean/beach/flowers) 1992 - Never doubt that a group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world, indeed – it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead :: (mural by Kass Johns: Ocean/beach/flowers) 1993 - A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging prejudices. - William Jones :: (mural by Kass Johns: Sky/clouds/mesa/hills) 1995 - Our humanity is you being you and me being me with no add ons. - K. Bradford Brown :: (mural by family: hand/peace sign, love sign/side rainbow) 1996 - Remember the golden rule. In memory of good times together, now & in the future. A journey of a thousand miles starts from where your feet stand. :: (mural by family: Light green barn) Painted by family after father, Bob Taylor, passed away. 1999 - True power comes from self control, true strength from a clear conscience, and true wealth from a good family and good friends. :: (mural by family: graffiti) 2002 - What we do is life echoes in eternity. :: (mural by family: smiley face/ graffiti) 2004 - Duty makes us do things well, caring helps us do them beautifully. :: (mural by family: humming birds) 2006 - Vote :: (mural by family: humming birds) 2009 - In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make. Happy trails c. Bob and Dessie - Beatles :: (mural by family: graffiti) Painted by family after mother, Dessie, passed in September 2009. 2011 - "Vaya con Dios" on barn front, then above stable: Taylor's Acre... C. Bob, Dessie, Dessie Bob, Bob Brent, Shannon, Tory, Cecil, Tamara, Est 1960 :: (mural by Kass Johns: sunset and mesa)   THE BARN PHOTOS 1972: The First Mural! 1976 1978 1979 1979-2 1980-81: Dessie Bob murdered June 1980 1982 1983 1994: The Butterfly 1984 1984-2: Twinkle Star 1984-3: Bob and Dessie 1987: Twinkle Star 1987-2 1991 1992: Twinkle Star and Pancho 1992-2: Fantasia (horse) and Pancho (foreground) 1993: Kass and Dessie 1993-2: Fantasia 1995 1996: C Bob dies Aug 1996 2002: Dessie, Tamara and daughter 2004: Cecil, Dessie and Tamara 2006 2009: Dessie dies September 2009 2011: The Last Mural! July 31, 2012: Buildings demo'd 2. BARN Mural FAQ (in progress) December 21, 2014 I will post other comments about the barn here as I write them on Facebook (for one thread or another), whether FAQ, info, fond memories or whatever... LETTERING THE QUOTES: Every year, people would ask me, right after I finished, "What does it say?" I'd always shrug my shoulders. I never knew because when each letter is about 12" tall and my face is 8-10 inches away, I only knew one letter at a time. I'd have someone (usually Dessie Taylor) call them out to me... me: OK, what's next? Dessie: "m" me: Ok, next? Dessie: "o" me: Next? Dessie: "space" (I'd scoot over) me: Ok, what letter? Dessie: "Capital L" and so on... Viewer: YOU paint the barn???! me: Yes. Viewer: What does it say this time? me: I know it had a "y" in it! Viewer: Huh? (me: explain conversation at top) It was rather funny! gggg I knew it to lay it out ahead of time, but I wouldn't commit it to memory! My "thumbnail sketches" for this 32' x 16' wall were done on an 11" x 17" sheet of paper!!!!! That's what my "helper" would work from. Thanks for the praise, but I didn't come up with the quotes, the Taylor family did. And I was "just" a friend of the family (but always felt like they were my extended family). The other thing I also thought funny was how many friends would tell me, "I saw you painting the barn. Did you see me? I honked!" If I had a dime for every person who honked at me while I was painting... IOW, I had no time to turn around each time I heard a honk. It would have taken me weeks to complete it! ggg Each barn mural would take me 1-2 days as I have the attention span of a gnat! My motto was, "Quick, get it done before I get bored with it!!!" Usually the image the first day, then lettering the next day. (The family always painted it white for me to have a "clean canvas" each time.) By the end of day two, I was so dehydrated and had a lovely sunburn! Ahhhh, the memories!!! LOL That paint was so DAMN thick when the barn was demolished. Cecil Taylor always swore the years of paint was what held it together. I now know he was right!   DATES: (Thanks to Dannette Taylor) Daughter, Dessie Bob, died June 17 1980 (her Birthday was June 23) Father, CBob, passed on August 7 1996 Mother, Dessie, passed on 9/2/2009. Her B'day was Dec 13 when she would have been 90 Bob & Dessie are missed every day by those who knew them and loved them.   Animals: Horses: The first one *I* remember was Tamara's paint pony (when we were very young) then Gorgeous, the Palomino, Buttermilk, the white horse and Fantasia, the brown quarter horse. Original donkey was Rainbow. Her daughter was Twinkle Star. Then Pancho was brought in to keep TS company after Rainbow died. After they both died, then AJ (Apple Jack original name) came to live there. Dessie called him Apple JUICE so it would be more "family oriented." ggg   3. BARN MURAL HISTORY July 24, 2014   The History of the Barn Mural... I am the muralist who painted The Barn for 20+ years. I did the most "famous" mural (the butterfly) that so many fondly remember. If it was a painting, I did it. The ones done in later years that looked like graffitti were done by the Taylor family. See the list of sayings that were on The Barn and the photos of each on my FaceBook page. The sayings are all in one of my "Notes" and the photos are in a special "Album" titled Barn Photos. Here's the basic run down. In the late sixties or very early seventies, Dessie Taylor (the Mom) was diagnosed with a brain tumor and told she had 9 months to live. (Tammie and I were in 8th grade trhen. I'm 58 now--you do the math.) If you knew Dessie you know her reaction. She told her doctor (basically), Hell no, I won't accept that" and more or less flipped him off. Well, the following Independence Day a large yard party was held at Taylor's Acre to celebrate her recovery and survival. (She had the tumor return 2 more times in her life and "shoo-ed" them away, yet again.) As Dessie often said, she was too mean [to die by a stupid brain tumor]. At this Independence Day party the drunken revelers decided to paint The Barn with a painting in celebration. This was the first mural "We are proud to be Americans" with the US flag. Annual Independence Days parties followed with the quote/"saying" sometimes changing and/or the mural being added to. The second mural, also done by the Taylor kids and party friends was the rainbow. After that all of the kids had moved out of state, save their youngest son. It was then that Dessie called me as I had turned out to become a designer/artist in adulthood, and since "[you're] the artist in the family could you paint the Barn mural for me?" My answer was yes. -- Every neighborhood has that special house where all the neighborhood kids hang out because those kids have "the kool parents." The Taylor house was that home in my neighborhood. I had been "best" friends with youngest child, Tammie, since kindergarten. I was lucky enough to be considered one of the family. I still think of the Taylor boys as my older brothers to this day (I'm now 58). -- Dessie and I decided that because of heat (and more), the mural was to be changed every two years with the saying changing every year on or around July 4th. Most of the paintings were designed to have the lettering in clouds or something solid that could be painted over to reletter it without changing the mural itself. The Taylor family would come up with the quote and Dessie would tell me what she wanted for the art... either a general idea or a photo she saw in a book or calendar. My first mural was the lone peacock in full display on the white barn wall. (We'd just white out the previous year's saying and paint a new one.) I was/am a calligrapher, so the lettering was always very simple for me, using the cement blocks as my writing lines and guides. (The Barn was a cement block building --I referred to it as a bunker-- and not of any significant architectural value.) -- CITY HALL Around this time something popped up in The Gazette about city council revamping sign regulations for the city. NOTHING was said about the Barn. But Dessie, in her determination, feared it might affect her beloved barn. She went storming into city council ready to do battle. While Mayor Bob (Issac) and the City Council (including Kathy Loo) tried to assure Dessie that her barn was not the issue, she made an issue over it and the Gazette and local radio picked up on the "story" and it was eventually blasted out on the AP wire service. Reader's Digest and Women's World Magazines contacted Dessie for the story. Interviews were done and The Barn was now in national mainstream magazines. Mayor Bob finally came up with an exemption letter to calm Dessie. It said that they could continue to paint the the entire barn as long as the art and message was not commercial, nor political. That calmed her down. It was then that she wanted me to use "every square inch" of the barn side facing the intersection so we would be "grandfathered" if they ever tried to cut back her sq footage. Since then, they always filled the space. -- THE BUTTERFLY As for the famous Butterfly mural... Dessie told me that she wanted a huge Monarch butterfly to "pop" from the face of the mural. Knowing Front Range winds, I knew it could not stick out too far without risking damage. I sketched out and painted the butterfly across 4 pieces of plywood (like a puzzle) in my driveway on TGap. I then cut it out with a jigsaw and my dad went over while I painted the background, to mount several pieces of 2x4 to the cement block wall where the butterfly would be mounted. Then the Butterfly came over last and was screwed into the wooden 2x4s as the finishing touch. It was then, that I told Dessie that I was a bit hurt that she would always tell the media that "the kids paint it" when interviewed. So she said that I should start signing them. I began to sign the murals in the lower right corner with my first name. On the last, "Sunset" mural, I put my name around that corner on the side to not mess with the design of solid silhouette color. Because the butterfly mural was so well-loved by passersby and Dessie, it stayed for several years and because the background was more complicated, the quote remained the same and only changed once. When the butterfly mural came down, Dessie wanted to keep the butterfly, so it was disassembled and re-mounted on the barn's opposite side (facing the house) so she could look at it every day. The summer that the butterfly went up, suddenly small wooden butterflies started popping up on homes around town and at craft shows. We never knew if that was a coincidental trend or inspired by the Barn mural. Please know that when the barn came down in July 2012, I saved the butterfly. He is in my garage on TGap awaiting repainting and remounting onto the end of my house or perhaps the alley side of my garage for all to see again. The Butterfly was up when on June 17, 1980, The Taylor's oldest daughter, Dessie Bob, was murdered by her policeman husband in a sensationalized local murder-suicide. The murder of Dessie Bob destroyed Dessie. (DB and her cop husband were in the middle of a divorce.) Dessie became obsessed with the event. From that day forward, she hated all police and kept that pain front and center in her life, never letting anyone forget what happened. While C.Bob (Dessie's husband and father of Dessie Bob) suffered too, everyone worried about Dessie. I, personally, felt so bad for Bob as his feelings were not so obvious, but I know it killed a part of him also. Bob was always a very kind and tolerant man. He never really raised his voice, but his stern look could tell you that you had done something that he did not approve of. After the murder of DB, Bob opened his wallet to allow Dessie and myself to buy whatever paint we needed for future murals. Up until then we would scrounge for paint (latex/enamel, I didn't care... I'd use it and happily mix & match!). I remember once using a small bottle of red enamel modeling paint to get a "splash" of red I needed for one of the paintings! Hey, Paint is paint when you are whacking away on a 30'x16' mural! ggg FUNNY STORY The "Universe" painting was one that I was not particularly fond of, but a funny story... The Gazette came out a did a big feature article on it while I was painting it. Bob Jackson (the Pulitzer Prize winning Photographer) took my photo while painting it that year. I was sooooo flattered that someone of his caliber had taken MY photo! Anyway... I had specially mixed colors of paint in gallon buckets. They were sitting on the corral ground, open. I never really paid that much attention to the horses/hooved animals in the corral. (Never donkeys while we were growing up--always horses. The donkeys didn't appear on property until after the kids had left home.) Well, I turned around while I was painting "the universe" and there stood Pancho, the donkey, with his snout half way inside a gallon can of lavender latex paint! "DESSIE!!!!!" I screamed toward the house! She came running down and shoo'd him out of it and got him (more or less) cleaned up. There were big runny streams of lavender paint all over the ground. What a mess! A few hours later, I looked down and there was Pancho eating the vinyl cover of my truck's wench! "DESSIE!!!!" I screamed again... this time I told her to get that little B%^*ard out of the corral. No more critters in the corral while I paint! Rainbow (Twinkle Star's donkey mom) was always very docile and never got into trouble. So Dessie put the two donkeys in the yard after that and let them mow the lawn on my paint days. DOING THE WORK I usually did the Barn mural in two days since I am ADHD and have the attention span of a gnat. I'd do the bulk of it 1st day (after 2pm when the sun hit other side of barn so I would not be BBQd against that white wall). Then I'd come back the second day and do the lettering and any detail work I needed. I had to stop drinking water while painting as I was always so dehydrated, I drink too much and end up sick. We switched to popsicles to keep me cool and hydrated. She'd come down to check on me and bring me another popsicle on each visit. I developed a system over the years and kept my painting supplies stored away in my garage just for this annual event. THE END I painted all of the murals except the flag, the rainbow and the ones that looked like graffitti. The Graffitti designs were done by Tamara and her daughter. This was because after Bob passed away on August 7, 1996, "the kids" wanted to do it again in their dad's memory. I was asked to come in again for the very last mural (the sunset w "Vaya con Dios") knowing it would be sold and destroyed. It was to mean sunset or dawn depending upon your point of view. The end of an era or the beginning of something new and exiting. I am the one who decided to list all the family names over the stable door side of the barn for folks to remember. (Bob & Dessie, children: Dessie Bob, Bob Brent, Shannon, Torry, Cecil (aka Meredith when we were kids), and Tamara (aka Tammie)   MISCONCEPTIONS CORRECTED As for some of the misconceptions in the Facebook threads that pop up from time to time, otherwise not addressed in this reply... 1. I'm a girl, not a guy. (Wasson '74) 2. The Barn was a huge cement block bunker and of no earthly value whatsoever. 3. Some people wanted The Flying W to take it, but I and Cecil Taylor (youngest son) assured the PTB at the Flying W that it would not be feasible, nor worth it. It never really had a traditional western barn look to it anyway and only "meant something" to locals... the tourists wouldn't "get it." Besides, even though it seemed to be a popular dream, the Flying W assured us that it was not really feasible and they were not ever seriously considering it. 4. When The Barn came down on July 31, 2012, IT FELL APART... Cecil and I were there and saw how most of the mortar tween blocks had turned to SAND! I was damn lucky it did not fall down when I was leaning my ladder on it the last time. We always joked that all the layers of paint was the true reason it still stood all these years later. (I kept about 17 blocks from the barn and have some chunks of the thick paint layers I created as a keychain for myself! It was THAT thick!) 5. It wasn't historic. It had been built in the early 60s. The only thing "historic" about it, was that half of the baby boomers in town smoked their first joint there!!! It was the party place! It was only historic to the MMJ industry for Pete's Sake!!! 6. The loft of the barn was first used as a meeting place for our 4H meetings, then when the oldest kids, Bob Brent & Shannon, wanted out of the house, they moved in there to get away from "us kids" before they moved away (the bedrooms in the small stone house were cramped enough!). Dessie Bob was long gone as an adult before I was involved with the family in the early 60s. 7. Yes, AppleJack ("AJ") the donkey went to live in Fountain when Dessie was moved to a retirement home a couple of years before she died. She died after a fall that broke her hip. She was just about 12 weeks short of turning 90 (Dec 13) when she passed on September 2, 2009. 8. Cecil tells the story of how Bob ended one of Tammie's barn parties when one of her friends, stupid drunk, jumped out of the loft window onto the dirt two stories below. Bob was reported to have said as they heard the scream & thump... "That's it. Party is over." (So yes, there were some out of control moments.) 9. I will now tell you what the family won't because I don't care if they get mad at me for telling... When we were kids in the seventies and sixties, yes, that was a valuable intersection and the Taylors were often approached about selling the land (most notably 7-11 and MacDonald's made offers). But, by the time Dessie died, the value in that corner had dropped significantly. Most newbies in town in last ten years or more don't even know where the Barn was. The intersection of Union and Fillmore/Circle is "the big intersection" now. The out-of-state siblings still assumed Taylor's Acre was valuable and so saw dollar signs in their eyes when Mom, Dessie, died. Cecil, the lone sibling living here, ideally wanted to donate the land and barn to the city for a community center/neighborhood garden type place. His siblings would have no part of that. Accusation of money mismanagement started to fly, lawyers were hired against each other and so the land went up for sale. It sat on the market for two years with for sale signs on it. Where were all the "Save the Barn" folks then?????? Huh? By the time it was finally sold to very nice Kidney Doctor who put his new clinic on it, the family, Cecil and I were very much okay with letting it go! Once word got out that it had finally sold... Oh, of course, THEN the Save the Barn group was created! (Arggghhhh) 10. I am tired of bad comments being made about the poor man who was just conducting business and purchased the land for his clinic!!! Geez, last time I checked, we lived in a free country with a free market system! People... who was going to pay for the land to the family who did NOT have the sentimentality that many of you have over the property? Who was going to be generous enough to buy it and "make a shrine out of it" and not earn income from it? A little reality, please! Cut this nice doctor some slack. He is saving lives by providing dialysis to patients. And do not begrudge him a profit so he can feed/house his family! 11. The critters. Yes, in Kindergarten, the neighboring grade schools would walk the kids over to "The Acre" to see the various farm type animals. They had chickens, turkeys, rabbits, dogs, cats, horses and more... Turtles in the bathtub, Tammie had an aquarium of white rats. We raised rabbits in 4H as I remember. The corral was always with horses, never donkeys, until after all the kids moved out. As kids, we'd toss a blanket, no saddle, on one of the horses and go riding up into Palmer Park for the day. As many so often say, "I remember when Academy Boulevard was a dirt road." I remember when we'd ride up into Palmer Park and there was NO dirt or any kind of road... it was just prairie grass. Let's see, horses... Gorgeous, the Palomino, Buttermilk was a white horse. I can't remember the dark brown quarter horse's name. And Tammie had a paint pony when we were young. It bit her and kicked Dessie. I never wanted a horse as a kid when I saw what they could do to you. Give me a critter that's smaller than me! When we were kids, the horses were always sent out to pasture for a month or more in the summer so they weren't cooped up in that tiny corral their whole existance. 12. The Barn is gone and I AM THE HAPPIEST ONE OF ALL! I will admit right here and now that I am a selfish person who, for years, suffered with anxiety nightmares for 2-3 months prior to July 4th... SOMEBODY else was painting "MY" Barn! were the recurring nightmares, night after night. It drove me crazy in my mental prepping for painting the barn. When I was asked to paint it again the final time, I was happy to do it, but geez, Louise, it dang near [physically] killed me! I was 56 years old and falling apart (hips, knees, ankles). It was not easy, but I was determined to finish it. It could not have been done without the help of Eric Nanninga, a childhood neighbor and school friend. Thanks, Eric for saving my butt! THE ONLY PERSON I am angry at is the demolition guy, I was promised first swing with the backhoe bucket when the barn went down (relieve all those years of stress & anxiety!). They forgot to call me. I got there from my Manitou office just after it went down. Cecil Taylor was waiting for me as we grabbed some blocks we wanted.   I am finally at peace now that it's gone. When you are an artist, a blank canvas is either exciting because of what it CAN be or overwhelming because it has yet to be begun. I am of the second mindset... overwhelmed. When your canvas is 32' x 16' it is VERY overwhelming! Yes, I was somewhat sad to see the painting go away, BUT, my wonderful memories of that corner are NOT of the barn, but of the house and the yard where so many games of football were played. The table in the livingroom where we'd all play penny poker on cold days. Of the rec room where we all shoot pool at their pool table while we snacked on the chocolate covered popcorn that Bob would fix for us in that big roasting pan, and the frozen chocolate milk carton where we'd sit and scrape out frozen chocolate milk with our spoons while we watched TV. It's where I learned to swim in their in/above ground full sized pool in the back yard. We'd spend all day, every day there in the summer! I was so damn lucky to have had the luxury of a private pool to swim in! Those are just some of MY favorite Taylor's Acre memories.