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.
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.
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.
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.
Fires occur regularly near my home in Southeast Wyoming. Sometimes it’s a forest fire to the west, sometimes it’s a grass fire to the south, east, or north, and occasionally fires burn from all directions. The blazes are sublime, invoking wonder and fear. The sky fills with smoke and haze.
Lightning causes many of the fires in this arid land. Intentional burns are regularly set to clear a field or ditch. Sometimes careless humans leave a campfire smoldering and it catches new life, turning into a devastating blaze. Sometimes, no matter the cause, a fire gets out of control and destroys lives.
Months after the destruction, the faint green signs of new growth will emerge from the charred land.
Scorched earth.
Hope for renewal.
Traveled through the ghost town (sort-of, there’s one inhabitant) of Lucin in 100° heat for this installation.
At the bottom of ancient Lake Bonneville, temperature nearing 100°.
Among the remains of the 1988 fire.
At 10,000 feet in the air (plus or minus a few), there’s always a chance you may end up in the clouds. A few minutes after this installation, visibility diminished to less than 20 feet.
Wyoming is known for its geothermal wonders and stunning mountain ranges, yet large portions of the state are high desert. These are my favorite spaces – they exist between destinations. Rusting equipment and signs from abandoned energy extraction industries dot the landscape, leaving remnants of their histories.
I installed these altered found objects in one of those in-between spaces. It was hot that day, sweat dripped into my eyes, the light was intense and it was hard to see. This image captured my experience.
This one is my favorite moon shot! These were my first installations at night, so I encountered new challenges in capturing the images and conveying the experience.
Lunar reflections.
