Louie is proud of this work at Three Sisters Irrigation District – it is a benefit to wildlife and he wants to spread the story. But there is more to it than that. This is a mutual and reciprocal healing: a story I want to spread.
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Environmental problems are not a dichotomy of problems with nature on one side and humans on the other. The dichotomy begins to crumble as soon as the concept of nature is removed. How will our relationship with our ecosystems change and how will our decisions be different if the distinction disintegrates altogether?
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The creek has been stretched back in time, erasing not only the human created erosion and damage, but also eliminating any chiseling the creek had done on its own prior to human intervention. It’s like shaking a giant Etch A Sketch until all evidence of previous drawings have been eliminated and the raw material is reset to a flat smooth plane where a new drawing can start to take form.
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My relationship with Whychus Creek started tentatively. The milky glacial water was not inviting even though it was a hot day in July. The headwaters on Broken Top are not very far away. The water is cold.
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In conjunction with my solo exhibition, Stories Told by Water, Umpqua Valley Arts hosted an artist talk on August 5. In this talk I give context to Stories Told by Water and I introduce work in progress the studio.
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This place is defined by water.
I came to Pine Meadow Ranch to listen to stories of the creek on this ranch in Sisters, Oregon. The ranch is idyllic with its unobstructed views of the mountains and Whychus Creek, its milky glacial melt waters originating from Broken Top and all Three Sisters, running through the ranch.
Little, if any land on the ranch is untouched. It is a fully constructed landscape dating back to the 1800s when settlers cleared fields for cattle and began diverting streams to irrigate their ranches. Some of the coveted water rights for this ranch date back to 1895, superseding the water rights of Three Sisters Irrigation District (TSID).
Leah Wilson: Stories Told by Water is a solo exhibition running from June 11 – August 20, 2021 at Umpqua Valley Arts in Roseburg, Oregon. The virtual opening reception is June 11 from 5 – 6 PM PST. See you there!
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What would happen if fear and guilt is dropped from conversations about the environment? What would it feel like to think of ourselves as part of nature rather than something separate that we need to fix? What if the land is internalized so that we are in fact, healing ourselves? What if we change perspective to be in relationship with the earth?
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Landscapes are ecosystems in fluid motion. They are never static, like in landscape photograph or landscape painting. The only way to be true to the story of the land is to pay attention to the way that it sways through time. Time is the metronome that keeps the beat for the rhythm of place. Without time, there is no rhythm, no music of the land. We feel this rhythm within us when we feel we know a place. It is a part of us.
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I wanted to make something fast. I see other artists producing so much work in such a short period of time. I want to do that too. Drawing, I thought, would be fast. How great would it be if I could have 30 new drawings in a month!
But the truth is, I’m slow. I am very slow. Honestly, I wouldn’t be satisfied any other way.
Recognition begins fairly quickly. Knowing is revealed slowly. Familiarity opens itself to a knowledge that stretches beyond a perceptual knowing of a place to an integrated embodied knowing. It’s a knowing that happens when you can sense the rhythms and patterns without being overtly aware of them. This knowing is sensitive. It may feel like knowing something from the gut, but the gut doesn’t have anything to do with it. It’s really a knowing that comes from connection. If the connection is disrupted, it is felt.
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Every river has a unique color palette, and they all fluctuate with the seasons. It’s like the color is a facet of the river’s personality. And now, through satellites and long-term data collection, we can clearly see how the colors are drifting away from their traditional cyclical patterns. The personalities of rivers are changing over time.
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The creative process often feels dark and murky. Sometimes shining a light on it makes it worse. There is no past. There is no future. There is only this one line being drawn right now. Only the present exists.
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The creative process spirals. It is not a neat, straight trajectory that marches forward into the future. Concepts, materials, and techniques can be pulled from far in the past and spiraled into a new body of work.
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Reflections: OPEN on view at Anti-Aesthetic Gallery November 2 – December 21. A sidewalk exhibition of video work by Gray Space.
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