On the flight, her seatmate recommended that she check out Cisco, a ghost town on the way from the airport to the park. Their home and the town are dilapidated and disappearing into the desert. we are unfortunately uncertain of when our applications will be open again. Allen heard about Muza through their sister. And while artists come to live there part of the time, theres only one year-round resident: Eileen Muza, who bought the town in 2015. And with the work of Eileens hands everywhere here now her soul layered with the others who have rebuilt this place over and over and over she said she wont be leaving if she can help it. The empty house wasnt for sale, but she tracked down its owner in nearby Grand Junction, Colorado. Muza moved there because of the opportunity to own a house, even if it needs work. Margaret is a wetplate photographer based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And that's what it looks like, people just up and left.". Eileen fought this the best way she could think of: She let them think she owned the whole town, so they would listen when she told them to stay on the road. Donate above, follow us instagram, share a post, tell a friend! My Mountains. The One Tire Valley. The Green Valley. And the Cisco Desert itself a scrubby barren plumbed with pump jacks and shimmering with broken glass? Eileen stomped back to bed, her bare feet pounding the boards. AJ Rogers, a retired Utah Department of Transportation foreman who grew up and still lives in Thompson Springs, remembers visiting the caf in Cisco in 1970 to play pool and drink beer as a teenager, the proprietor not being particular about ID. What Eileen has done isnt restoration. But it does feel like a resurrection. 13. They yanked up three shag carpets laid over several sheets of linoleum. Since launching Home of the Brave in 2019, Muza has had a rotating cast of artists stay with her, as well as friends who use the space for their work. Athletic and tall with wind-tangled blond hair, Farland lived in the La Sals, worked odd jobs and shared Eileens love of old stuff. I guess this was a town recently enough to be sort of alarming as a ghost town, I said at another point. A gardener, explorer, scrapper, and individualist, Muza bought an inexpensive house there to, in Gilman's words . "She's changed a lot of people's lives," Muza added, speaking of the woman she met on her flight. Ghost towns have a certain charm; Cisco, Utah, certainly cast its spell on Eileen Muza, who is restoring the town and offering a three- to five-week artist residency "to both preserve and. Virginia left her kids Gingers young mother, aunt, and one of her uncles in charge while she was away, and Glass looked out for them, Ginger said. Cisco is not abandoned, she often points out: I live here., The La Sal Mountains rise up south of Eileens home, and Cisco stands in the Cisco Desert, in an exposed, waterless low spot that one book describes without irony as a hole. But Eileen has her own names for things, her own landmarks. A casual plane conversation changed the trajectory of Muza's life, leading her to the tiny abandoned town, which was built in the 1880s as a railroad service station, and was once home to hundreds. She laughed when she first heard about Muza's plan to live there, but said it makes sense for Muza. rules, Utes seeing transfer portals impact on college gymnastics, artists come to live there part of the time. When experiences are sold, when scenery becomes commodity, places can morph into caricatures of themselves, obscuring context and meaning. Late one frigid December night, I was reading in Eileens post office when I heard a gunshot a few feet away. Its a challenge, but also its a punishment. Eileen was cautious, but undeterred by the abstract possibility of falling through a rotten floor, or of getting caught, Linda said. Eileen Muza, full-time resident of Cisco, Utah interrupting a windy photo shoot on her property. There were others, too. Theres just Muza. // ]]>. There was supposedly an old road, but every track we tried ended in a gully or holes big enough to swallow a wheel. Reimagined by visual artist Eileen Muza, the former ghost town is now a working embodiment of the values that she and others in the extended Cisco family have worked to foster: artistic freedom, creative repurposing, social inclusivity and sustainable growth. 712 following. If you want to plan the perfect spring picnic, food and drink are important, but its certainly not the only factor to consider. She added, though, that she doesnt mind when people pass through and are respectful of her property. In 1988, the then mostly conservative community blocked the incinerator by a two-to-one vote. Combining Muzas appeal with the mystique factor of the landscape the dry and dead ground, with no ability to grow anything and intrigue about how once-thriving small towns die out, Allen was convinced that she should make a movie. A musician and woodworker named Michael Gerlach came out from Milwaukee after a bad breakup and stayed off and on for eight months. Once, a customer tried to grope Gingers aunt, and she dumped a bowl of stew on his head. Cisco, Utah, is a ghost town alright. They led us to the little knot of juniper trees where it lay, and we peered through a hole in its chest. IT DIDN'T TAKE EILEEN LONGto realize that leaving her property on Garbage Island unattended was risky. That's because Muza lives in Cisco, a ghost. That's because Muza lives in Cisco, a ghost. Home of the Brave is committed to cultivating a space where artists of any medium, means, or self-identification, can immerse themselves and create freely amidst the beauty and solitude of the high desert. They also made the punishing work Eileens journey through the desert, with its long days and constant grime lighter. The town went from very quiet to absolute silence, recalled Dean Christensen, who ran leases in the oilfield over the next 40 years from the house next door to Eileens. Drillers hit hydrocarbons in the Cisco Desert in the mid-20s, and the industry periodically flared and subsided there over the next century. Cisco Kid, directed by Emily Kaye Allen, will show Friday, 3 p.m., at the Slamdance Film Festival, at Treasure Mountain Inn, 255 Main St., Park City. Ironically, AJ told me, the new interstate ran right through the townsite that Cisco had left to follow the railroad. In this rapaciously dry year, a quiet question grows louder: What are we doing here? (EKA Pictures) Eileen Muza, the sole resident of the ghost town of Cisco, Utah, has a bath and a smoke, in a moment from director Emily Kaye Allen's documentary "Cisco Kid," which will have its. She and her sisters are planning an artist residency in an old Winnebago that she and another friend are framing as a house. Is a serial killer dumping bodies in Chicagos waterways? Among them was a couple from Arizona who stopped by bearing groceries and some dog treats several months after Cairo died. NOW WATCH: Can the novel coronavirus be stopped? She pointed to the other side of town where shed heard someone rummaging in a building on the main road. "I was always surprised that no one else has done this. An hour down the road in Moab, the county seat, environmental consciousness was growing. Youre not really starting over, youre continuing something, and hopefully improving it.. The Most Offbeat Artist Residency in the World May Be This One in a Winnebago Parked in a Utah Ghost Town The residency's founder, artist Eileen Muza, is the town's sole resident. She watched flabbergasted as tourists climbed under fences to explore ominous buildings papered with No Trespassing signs or wandered onto her own property filming with their iPhones while she was in plain sight. "A suggestion can change the course of someone's life, which is definitely what happened to me," she told Insider. Almost all had been tagged with graffiti or vandalized, their windows shot out a long time ago. It pays off in the film, which is punctuated with eerily quiet shots and with the realities Muza faces, like having to conserve water and be strategic about washing dishes. Eileen Muza is the sole resident of Cisco, Utah, a scattering of old buildings in the high desert 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of the Colorado line, KUTV reports. 10 months ago (Almost) finished patio & gold mine STAY OUT STAY ALIVE . The work was seasonal, and her house was a rental in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. The Unknown was not why Eileen moved to Cisco. It was so cold when her dad, Richard Muza, visited that the paint he intended to use on Eileens little post office froze solid and he had to thaw it with a space heater. Then Allen met Muza, and in her words, found them to be a real character. She eventually overcame her trepidation, though, and became fascinated by the town and its unique history. According to the Moab Sun News, the towns population shrank after the railroad switched to diesel locomotives, making steam engines obsolete, and rendering the water the Cisco station provided unnecessary. It can be difficult to judge whether the Wild West stories about Cisco are true or apocryphal. Once I realized (Eileens) situation, I wanted to see how the story ended, he said. Are other banks to follow? That's because Muza lives in Cisco, a ghost town without running water located in the Utah desert, entirely by herself. Bands passed through seasonally, harvesting pronghorn and wild onion, and later moving with their own livestock. Sign up for notifications from Insider! Visual artist and native Chicagoan Eileen Muza joins Steve Bertrand on Chicagos Afternoon News to explain how she decided to leave the big city to purchase the small town of Cisco, Utah, with a mission to preserve the towns history while offering artists a unique place to work. Once they hear him talking about whores and beer farts, she said, people hit the gas real quick.. They recognized something in each other, and soon Joe was a regular, too. Follow. But like the Art Institute, it felt shaky. EILEEN CAME TO RELISH THE FREEDOMof The Unknown, all searching walks and random artifacts: a dump full of brown-glass Clorox bottles like the ones Ginger Shuey described; a wooden post hammered into the ground miles from anywhere with a metal file jammed into the top. Just because I'm alone right now doesn't mean I'll be alone forever,'" she said. Eileen Muza (They/Them) Eileen is a visual artist and sole year-round resident of Cisco, Utah. In 1952, a man named Charlie Steen was living with his family in a tarpaper shack in Cisco when he made the uranium strike south of Moab that spurred the mining and milling frenzy that consumed parts of Utah until the 1980s, when Moabs mill finally closed. A lot of work. They rejected the idea. Another day, some horses wandered into town and she, her sister Maggie and a friend led them back to the camp of some Peruvian shepherds. A second screening is set for Monday, 1 p.m., also at Treasure Mountain Inn. They acquired their land in Cisco in 2015 and began the arduous process of refurbishing and rebuilding various structures that had been long-abandoned on the property. howdy@eileenmuza.org Our Mission I realized after going there that I had sort of driven through it [while] on a river trip at Green River, she said. We met up with . That means the thing that I'm doing is working, it's drawing a lot of people.". All rights reserved. Cisco is not abandoned, she often points out: "I live here." The La Sal Mountains rise up south of Eileen's home, and Cisco stands in the Cisco Desert, in an exposed, waterless low spot that one book describes without irony as "a hole." But Eileen has her own names for things, her own landmarks. Natasha Woods was born in Iowa, and currently lives in Columbus, Ohio where she is in pursuit of her MFA at The Ohio State University. Eileen imagined it as a deep pool and brought a bar of soap. She's been fixing up the place bit by bit, and launched a thriving artist's residency in town last year. In Cisco, even the light has blades. The referendum signaled the regions new direction: A near-complete dependence on tourism, its own form of extraction. She could be gregarious and disarming. It was interesting because it was just a landscape I wouldnt expect someone to want to live [in], Allen said, Theres a lot of beauty surrounding Cisco.. CISCO, Utah An artist is trying to revitalize an abandoned old railroad town in eastern Utah by refurbishing dilapidated buildings and converting them into residences for artists. Por Sophie-Claire Hoeller Quando Eileen Muza, 36, acordou uma manh com o som de um beb chorando, sua primeira reao foi que ela deve estar alucinando - ou ouvindo fantasmas. Andrew Cogliano out for Game 7 with fractured neck after Jordan Eberle's hit leaves Avalanche miffed at lack of suspension. 9,966 followers. Muzas AirBnB is housed in the towns former post office shack, which they have fixed up to maintain an income. But late one night as we watched the barrel fire burn down, I asked Farland and Eileen more explicitly if this ghost-town obsession was really about death. Devin Booker sulked. It happens everywhere.. This story was funded with reader donations to the High Country News Research Fund. "I guess that's the difference between me and everybody else that comes here because I certainly wasn't the first one to visit," she said. Like with the La Sals and the desert, Eileen came up with her own affectionate name for Cisco: Garbage Island. These connections helped build Eileen a foundation that property and self-reliance alone couldnt give: a boosted faith in her own vision, and a kind of community. It might be a reason that she stays, though, if she stays. She wouldnt be getting another dog, she finally insisted. SUGGESTED VIDEOS | Local stories from 9NEWS. In 2020 U.S. Census data, Cisco recorded a total of four residents. The spotlight pooled across the front of the cabin. Her work navigates the tension between the desire for human tenderness and the hopeful expectations of a better world. It can be hard not to, once you work your way into that feeling of empty space and no one to hold you accountable. Muza said that as an artist, all she could see was the town's potential, and the many materials she could work with. Runners-up get invited for three weeks without a stipend, an offer Muza said has yet to be refused. By the 1980s, Grand County had collected 80.5 acres of Cisco in lieu of delinquent taxes. But the $30,000-a-year price tag seemed to lead to impossible debt, so she dropped out, and, after she had worked off her loans, traveled instead. A few days into one of my visits, fed up with the heat, Eileen, her sister Claire, and Claires friend, Amy, piled into an SUV and bumped overland to find a spring that someone had told Eileen about. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. According to Moab resident Ginger Shuey, Glass occasionally stopped by the house where her grandmother, Virginia Gruver, boarded guests. Join Facebook to connect with Eileen Muza and others you may know. That's because Muza lives in Cisco, a ghost town without running water located in the Utah desert, entirely by herself. When some travelers fall in love with a particular destination, they buy a timeshare. She didnt like strangers trespassing on private land that absent neighbors couldnt defend, or taking things for their own use. Dale Harris dads place burned down after he died, and Dale demolished the garage and root cellar, too. Rubble is all that remains of most buildings. Later, she stayed for nearly a month. And that's great. A artista Eileen Muza trocou Chicago por uma cidade abandonada em Utah, que ela tem lentamente transformado em um centro de arte. Muza has a PO Box onsite, and can even get Amazon packages delivered, which is a big plus since the nearest towns, Moab, Utah, and Grand Junction, Colorado, are each about an hour away. There's electricity and Wi-Fi now, but no running water; Muza says she collects rainwater and has a solar shower. And another inside the front door: Franzisco Picabea, 1962, beside faded lines scrawled in Spanish and Basque. Courtesy Eileen Muza. Its too much of a weak spot for me. "There's a lot of anxiety around social things and approval. That looks like the only house in America that I can afford, she said to herself. There are animals in here, she squeaked, part nerves, part delight. She serves on the boards of directors for the Moab Arts Council, and the Rocky Mountain Community Radio coalition, and the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. Begin typing your search above and press return to search. Like the much more populous Thompson Springs to the west, Cisco started as a water stop for the steam-powered railroad. Linda worried about Eileen being a young woman alone out there, and about Eileen being lonely. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Star Wars cards and a gold ring; old coins and floppy disks. Dean claimed at least three bodies were dumped near Cisco during his tenure, and that the serial killer Ted Bundy stopped by the old store and gas station and immediately turned around when he found a group of armed locals playing cards. People seemed to feel entitled to the space because they thought it was empty. Part of me wants to just see how bad its going to get, she told me after a mutual friend introduced us. And while artists come to live there part of the time, there's only one year-round resident: Eileen Muza, who bought the town. Eventually you just get tired of it. One weekend, we took off with Rima to look for water a cake of soap wrapped in brown paper balanced between us on the dash of her little sedan. 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The wind was constant, and that spring, it gusted so hard one night that some of Eileens friends heard a lopsided building tear apart and collapse. Image credit: Original illustration by Sarah Gilman. Visit Insider's homepage for more stories, A man who lives alone in an airplane hangar in a Utah ghost town has found the ultimate escape, A YouTube star decided to stay on a remote island off the coast of Yemen after borders closed, but says she doesn't regret a thing, A man walking the entire length of the UK coast is self-isolating on a tiny, uninhabited Scottish island with his dog, A family of 4 moved into a 350-square-foot RV that they transformed into a dream home on a budget. Allens film shows Muza in the process of creating a life in Cisco. US to lift most federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates, Columbine and Parkland Author Dave Cullen: Data, Future looks bright as Bears address needs in draft. When Eileen Muza, 36, awoke one morning to the sound of a crying baby her first reaction was that she must be hallucinating or hearing ghosts. Should officer lose job for shooting Adam Toledo? Eileen named her Rima. The residency, called " Home of the Brave ," takes place in a former railroad fill station and ghost town that's being resurrected by artist Eileen Muza. There were no neighbors within miles. It is also the reason it is so hard to stay. In a town full of rusted automobiles and tilting structures, most people expect abandonment in Cisco - not Eileen.