104° 58′ W x 40° 54′ N no. 23
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105° 14’ W x 40° 31’ N no. 44
When I read the email stating that art critic and author Eleanor Heartney chose this installation image to be included in Ecoconsciousness, “WOW!” and “I can’t believe it! Really?” raced through my mind. I own books written by her and so was pretty excited and honored when I received the news! (My work is on page 73 of the catalog in the exhibit link.)
In the midst of prepping for my solo exhibit Here and Gone that opened in January 2020, I had little time reflect deeply on the work that I created a few short weeks prior. I’ve now been able to do so since I took the exhibit down in early March, just before the spread of COVID 19 paused the world.
I was pleased with the series and the exhibit, and remain so, but the work now has new layers of meaning for me, especially after thinking about what others have said about it. This review of the exhibit by Jennie Kiessling that was published in Studio Wyoming Review on Wyofile dug deep into the soul of my work and captured my intent and purpose very well.
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105° 14’ W x 40° 31’ N no. 98
More than a year in the making, the objects in this installation were in need of the right place. When I create objects in my studio, they are not intended for a specific site. Sometimes as the objects come to be, I’ll start to see the possibilities of installing them in certain conditions. I didn’t know where the right place for these would be, but I thought snowy conditions would be suitable.
Then my friends Jennie and Andrew invited me to spend time creating installations on the land where they make their home in early December 2019. And there was snow — lots of it!
I spent 48 wonderful hours there. From the large windows of their passive house (off-grid) I watched the light change throughout the day and saw glistening stars in the vast sky at night. (Hello, Orion!) I was able to simply be and create.
I spent hours creating installations on the snowy land and took 200+ images. Once I returned home and uploaded photos to my computer to process all those raw images, I whittled them down to 100 I was happy with.
I further whittled them down to 21 that will be shown as projections and prints in my solo exhibit Here and Gone at Artworks in Loveland, Colorado January 10 – February 29, 2020.
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94° 12′ W x 36° 22′ N no. 24
Sometimes when I have traveled away from my home on the plains I find myself working in a forest. Such lush and green locations are overwhelming to me, and I am out of my comfort zone creating installations surrounded by towering trees that hide the sky. Uneasy feelings of being trapped invade my senses, and my adrenaline rushes.
The location of this installation was one such place. To add to the anxiety as I worked, I heard voices of people nearby, though I couldn’t see them because of all the trees. I do not intend for my work to be performative and seen by people, and knowing there were other humans nearby made my heart pound and my hands jittery.
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82° 29′ W x 43° 6′ N no. 7
Lonely sentinels.
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105° 8′ W x 40° 37′ N no. 6
There’s not enough water out here in the arid West.
Then there’s too much water.
Submerged.
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110° 6′ W x 43° 45′ N no. 10
Floating.
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110° 43′ W x 43° 30′ N no. 9
The objects I created in this ephemeral installation reflect the weathered bones scattered about and the rusting metal implements left abandoned on the land. I consider their histories and untold stories. Why this place? What happened? Who was here?
I’m left with more questions than answers. I can live with that.
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123° 39′ W x 39° 9′ N no. 8
Sometimes we find ourselves in a dark place.
Deep forests, even though there’s beauty to be found in the shadows, disorient me. I can’t see. I want to hide from what is not visible. I feel closed in. I want out.
I long to be back in wide open spaces where I can see land stretching out for miles around me and see infinite skies. I want to be back in familiar territory.
In this installation, the redwood forest dwarfs my objects and bathes them in darkness.
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107° 21′ W x 41° 58′ N no. 54
Stunning colors as the sun hovers on the horizon are the manifestation of fires blazing across the West, burning drought-ridden vegetation and choking breath from humanity and wildlife. Beautiful, but deadly.
Barbed wire fencing criss-crosses Western lands, marking boundaries, but it doesn’t contain the droughts or the fires. The lines and spikes occupy my memory as far back as I can go, having grown up out here and climbed between the barbs a few times, and imagery of the fencing material has made appearances in my work frequently over the course of my career. The objects in this installation follow the continuum.
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104° 54′ W x 41° 25′ N no. 10
Typical Wyoming days — blue sky, howling wind — are my favorites for getting out on the prairie and creating installations. The wind causes unpredictable images, capturing my feeling in the moment. Gusting around 50 mph, the force blows the grasses, my objects, and me.
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123° 43′ W x 39° 7′ N no. 4
Signs of civilization are everywhere, repeating themselves throughout the land. You see the same utility poles on the California coast that you see on the Utah desert that you see on the Wyoming high prairie. The same fence posts. The same dotted highway lines. The same train tracks.
This image is one from the series of ephemeral installations I created to reflect repetitive human constructions by placing the same objects in different locations around the West.
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art in the middle of nowhere 