Art Association Gallery, Jackson, Wyoming
Map, "Visualizing the Unknown"
This site-specific installation is inspired by my archival research into the diaries of female pioneers written between 1850 and 1930, many of them settlers from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. These women existed in a transitory state, encountering challenges for which they couldn't be prepared. Their survival depended upon the landscape, the provisions they carried, and the words they inscribed on paper. Four visual layers translate my experience: a map ("Visualizing the Unknown"); the framing narrative of my own voice ("The Land The Journey," "A Vocabulary of Materials"); a sequence representing the stages of the journey ("Prepared-Unprepared"); and a sculpture ("Constellations of Experience"), consisting of paper fragments held in a large triangular column of hand-looped strands. Quotes representing the voices of the pioneers are hand-written on the wall behind. As in a stage performance, the place, historical context, characters, and dialogue are all present
The sculpture is a vast, intricate and specific wedge of individual strands; its scale concretizes the presence of the Tetons. The viewer feels the presence of something large while reading, and at the same time can experience individual moments in the pioneers' lives.
Ink, Fishing Line, Pastel, Paper
262" x 70" x 48"
2012
Pastel, Paper
12" x 52 1/2" x 1 1/2"
2012
There is a cycle of planning, gathering, unraveling, and reweaving that is necessary in the course of a journey, in order for us to tolerate moments for which we are not prepared.