Roswell Residency 2

Nov 6

Written By Image west

I was beyond thrilled and honored to make my second trip out west during this Sabbatical. I packed up my car with as many art supplies as I could and my 2 little dogs and headed out on the familiar 18 hour drive. I returned to Roswell, NM for a second artist residency from October 5- November 15, 2022. I was in a different house and studio on the Berrendo Historic Studios property this go around, part of the RAIR Foundation. Pictured in the first photo is my house with a fantastic, attached studio. With a wall of windows on both the North and South sides of the studio, I had amazing light. I was super excited about this studio because my plan for the residency was to make a large hanging site-specific installation to be shown at the Turchin Art Center right after the residency ended. The space it would hang at the Turchin had a large wall of windows so I thought this would be a great space to use to create the work.

While in residence, I spent time in the RAIR Printshop printing a bunch of new laser engraved, shaped plates I had made while back home. I would wake up daily time to go set my paper out in the sun, continuing my ritualistic staining of the sheets with walnut ink I made at home.. On especially warm and sunny days, I would put up to 20 sheets in the yard for around 8 hrs, or the max time the sun would allow. As the days went by, the sun got weaker and weaker, making the staining less potent. But, it was still far more effective than it would of been back in Kentucky. Summertime is certainly the best time for this process though.

In addition to the two different versions of the hanging installation I created mostly from the prints that we made during my time at Murray State University, I continued to work on some circular panels. I brought five 30in circle panels a long and two that were 26 inches. I finished all of these works. I sent off the five larger pieces to Turchin to be part of the exhibition. Lastly, I started working on another large installation piece as well. It was a busy and prolific working time.

Special thanks to the artists who did studio visits with me and to Larry Bob Phillips for giving me this great opportunity and for helping me figure out how to hang the work from the crazy tall ceilings in the studio.

I also spent a lot of time out in nature. I visited my favorite place, White Sands National Park for a few days in Alamogordo. While down south I also went hiking in Alamo Canyon in Lincoln National Forest. Closer to home base, I spent a lot of time hiking at Bottomless Lake State Park and watching birds and exploring a bit a Bitter lake Wildlife Refuge. These places provided me with great inspiration that will be seen in my work for a long time.

The album above is from White Sands National Park. White sands is the largest deposit of gypsum in the world. The dunes cover 275 square miles and are breath taking. I have visited this park probably 15 times in the last 20 years and I would go every week if was near it. Since my visit 2 months ago, I have been thinking a lot about the plants that live there and and how they create crazy deep root structures so that they can survive in the sand dunes. Soap tree yucca plants can have 30 ft root structures so they can survive the ever shifting and changing dunes.. Others create shelves on sand with their roots. I just love that they go to such measures to stay alive. Nature is amazing.

The images above are from Alamo Canyon in Lincoln National Park.

Another place I explored on a number of occasions on the trip was Bottomless Lake State Park. This is a beautiful park outside of Roswell. I am really interested in the geology of the area, You can read more on it at the link above. The images above this text are from this area.