The cave at Falling Rock Falls,
just outside of Montevallo, has become a literal watering hole for the
Montevallo community and is a popular gathering place for college
students. The marks people have made on
the place have left an indelible impression of the culture, values, and
ideologies of the people that gather there.
Graffiti and art cover the walls, rocks are stacked in clearly manmade
sculptures, a large fire pit sits below an ash blackened ceiling, and trash
litters the cave and surrounding area.
The evidence left there suggests that this place is often used as a
place to hang out, a place to express one’s self, a place to leave a mark on
the world, and a place to exert power and control over the natural world.
Noticeable
on the hike down to the cave are an abundance of large bright paintings working
together to cover the cave wall – and in some cases individual painting fill
the whole space between wall and ceiling.
Hikers are first confronted with a large face, facing directly towards
them while they hike down. This face is
larger than life and distorted, with one bulging red eye, saying “what a trip –
sikoe.” It directly faces the trail
down and is place directly next to a source of clean drinking water. The face seems to be mocking the hiker and
the hike – a relatively simple one – by exaggerating the trip down and tying it
to obvious drug references. The artist
chose to paint the face in a way and in a place that cannot be missed by every
hiker there, ostentatiously drawing attention to it and in turn the
artist. He has successfully left his
mark on that piece of the world, everyone that enters there cannot fail so see
and acknowledge his work.
On
the opposite side of the spring water, a natural gathering place, is another ostentatious
piece of graffiti, done by a different person in conversation with the person
that painted the face. Here the word
snail is painted in shimmering gold and pink with a black outline and blue
water and blood splashing behind it. This
piece of graffiti is a signature, it’s a way for the painter to mark his
territory and let other know he was there and that space is, and will forever be
his. However, over top this, Sikoe
exerted his dominance by quickly scrawling his name several times and then
painting a simple snail next to the word snail in the same yellow and blue of the
face. Like Sikoe is exerting dominance over
Snail, both – and all of those that write on the walls – are dominating nature,
a basic human instinct. One tagger is
quick to point this out to hikers as they first enter the cave. The very first writing on the cave wall is “rock
painting since 10,000 BC” in yellow paint calling attention to the long
tradition of storytelling though symbols on a wall and the long struggle of man
versus nature.
While
the biggest and most obvious things on the wall are the paintings previously
mentioned, smaller but more permanent carvings also cover the wall. Various people over the years have carved
their names into the wall. More
permanent and subtle than paint, the carvings are people’s actual names rather
than the pseudonyms used by the painters. These names are connected to other names,
dates, pictures, or phrases that are important to the person that put their
name there. The simplicity of the names belies he effort required to carve something
into rock. The people that put their
names in the rock not just to show dominance over the rock but to leave an indelible
mark of themselves somewhere in the world; a mark that would last even after
they are long gone from this place and perhaps even this world. They wanted to leave something that would
stand, forever, as a testament to their life and that allows them to live, on
stone, forever. The carvings stand as
more than the individual though, they show a cultural, a human, desire to live
beyond death and to never be forgotten.
Over
some of the carvings in the wall are the words “1985 Chicken McNuggets,” a part
of a larger attempt to chronicle popular culture and seeming innocuous things
that have had a large impact within the last 30 years. Just visible under the layers of graffiti is
the rest of the recording of recent history, in a manner that is as old as
recorded history itself. Unfortunately,
the timeline has been lost in the melee of insignificant tagging and attempts
to create art or just leave a mark.
Off
in one corner of the cave is a large fire pit.
Above this pit is the blackening of years of ash and evidence of many
fires. Fires that have provided food, created
warmth, and been a site for people to gather, share stories, bond, and
experience a life that is not part of the everyday. Fire is an original sign and source of power,
if controlled fire can provide light, warmth, and energy but when unleashed it
is destructive and has the power to consume and change everything it
encounters. To have control over such a
destructive force is a wonderful thing, it has allowed humanity to progress and
allows us to control our surroundings.
In
the “Paris Not Flooded” chapter of Mythologies
by Roland Barthes he says that the Ark is a “happy myth” because it “gives
evidence that the world is manageable.”
Like Ark and flood in Barthes Mythologies,
the cave at Falling Rock Falls is evidence that the world is manageable. Humans have come in and left their mark, they
have taken control of the nature there, and they have proven that the world,
that nature, is manageable and can be controlled. 
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