I am very excited and honored to have been juried into a Signal Fire Artist Residency/Retreat happening this May! Signal Fire runs public-lands-based backcountry trips and residencies for artists It’s a wonderful chance to think, read, and write about my art practice and work in the Four Corners Ecogregion / Pueblo, Diné, and Apache territories in Northern New Mexico.
May 17-23, 2020
Location: Four Corners Ecogregion / Pueblo, Diné, and Apache territories
Guides: Amy Harwood and Anna Ialeggio
The Pueblo Revolt was one of the largest Native American uprisings in North America and its significance lives on. Led by Popé, a Tewa religious leader from Ohkay Owingeh, the pueblo people summoned their combined strength in August 1680 to drive the Spanish occupiers from the province. Freedom from Spanish colonial rule was ultimately short-lived, but this victory was an important turning point for the self-preservation of pueblo culture and language, and still resonates today in the social structures of Northern New Mexico.
Traveling through the Jemez Mountains of NW New Mexico, we’ll center the legacy of the Pueblo Revolt as we immerse ourselves in the deep social and ecological histories of a complex place: not as a linear set of events, but as an entangled field that is still unfolding. This trip combines short but challenging backpacking segments with periods of rest and stillness in the diverse mesas and canyons of the Jemez region. Rolling ponderosa forests open onto the vast grasslands of a collapsed volcano. It is a place of hot springs, wildflowers, and hoodoo rock formations. Evidence of ancestral and contemporary Puebloan culture abounds even in the back-country, with thousands of un-excavated archaeological sites throughout the area. Troubling aspects of the military-industrial complex are present as well, from the nuclear testing areas of Los Alamos, to the oil derricks and abandoned mines studding the public lands of the high desert.
Our group of artists will share a week together, immersed in and responding to this ecological and cultural landscape. Site visits and readings will offer entry points for interpretation and exploration. This “walking residency” is not focused on creative production per se, although we will offer time for reflection and discuss ways to incorporate the experience into our various practices.
