Back To Bozeman

I had made a call on Christmas Eve to my friends Andy and Cheryl whom I had just visited briefly in Bozeman, MT.  There's something about that place that was drawing me back.   My request to return came a little sooner than they expected, but all is good.
    Decisions made, Furnace coming up. Time to pack up & move on.  It was New Years Eve, sunny, T-shirt weather in California.  I repacked the truck, double checked everything, and proceeded to lock Evan's keys in the Tech Room.

    An hour later, after breaking in to retrieve the keys, I was on the road!  Sun at my back, on into Nevada. The trip that day was pleasantly uneventful. I took I-80E across to I-93N. Beautiful clear sky that night. Found a great spot to park for the night.

    The first day of 2012 was a crisp, sunny day.  I watched the sunrise in Northern Nevada and as I crossed into  Southern Idaho.  The roads were pretty quiet - This was the first time I have been travelling on New Years Day.  Very appropriate for this one.  I stopped off a couple of times, just for short breaks, still had a ways to go.  

    I drove past Hell's Half Acre again. This time I stopped. The part of the Park that you can visit is basically at rest stops on either side of the the highway.  There are paved trails from there that meander across the broken landscape.  Apparently the surrounding fields are like this below the surface, then covered with thousands of years of dirt that has landed there via the winds.  I would really like to return to that place.  As I drove away, thoughts started to bounce around and collide.

    The juxtaposition of those smooth trails, some with railings and gates, all winding around this broken ground suddenly caused a whole group of thoughts and images that have been floating around in my head to gel into something that makes sense (to me anyway).  That little visit spawned ideas for a series of sculptures exploring the intersection of humans and our landscape, the way it presents itself to me. I have been moving around for the last couple of months and noticed much diversity in the way human beings have manipulated the landscape, and also how the landscape can reclaim.  It is something that has been present in my mind for as long as I can remember - its just that now I finally have thoughts on how this imagery can start to evolve into actual objects to tell a story.  I may have understated the significance of this epiphany, I'll try to rephrase - In that moment, complete sculptural objects appeared, along with the hundreds of visual reference memories they are constructed from, as well as the processes I might use to create them, all poured in at once.  It is difficult to put in words what this experience is like.