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.
Last autumn’s supermoon provided light for installations on the high plains.
Haze from wildfires hundreds of miles away clouded the views at Power Switch. I created this installation on the land art, with permission from one of the artists, Sue Sommers.
This image is one of 10 installation images I submitted to the Wyoming Arts Council’s Visual Arts Fellowship competition, and much to my delight and surprise, my work was selected to receive one of three awards! I’m still pinching myself a bit, since I’d applied several times before. This is an honor that one always hopes for but doesn’t dare expect. I’m very thankful to judges Pedro Vélez, artist and critic from New York City, and Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson, the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art at the Portland Art Museum.
Even though Wyoming is a sparsely populated state, lots of artists choose to live here and create. There’s freedom in the vast expanses of land and sky, and even though we live far from each other, artists from all over the state are connected. We connect via social media throughout the year and meet annually at the Wyoming Arts Council’s CLICK conference. It is an exhilarating weekend of workshops and networking. The Fellowship winners are announced at the conference, so this year I experienced the thrill and support of being congratulated by my friends and peers.
To make the honor even more exciting, the two artists who also received Fellowships are my good friend Georgia Rowswell, who creates stunning pieces of layered cast-off fabrics, and Susan Moldenhauer, an amazing photographer who has inspired me for years with her images and her curatorial work as director of the University of Wyoming Art Museum. In a couple of years our work will be exhibited together in the Biennial Fellowship Exhibition. Our work will be very complimentary and I’m excited to see how the exhibit is curated.
The exhibition curator will come visit my studio to select work, so I better get moving!
art in the middle of nowhere 