I recently spent two weeks in central Idaho as the 2024 artist-in-residence for the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. The residency program is co-administered by the Sun Valley Museum of Art and the National Forest Service. I stayed at the Sawtooth Valley Work Center, a small Forest Service housing complex facing the Sawtooth Mountains, so named because their geology has created a jagged ridgeline that resembles a saw. The complex is surrounded by fields of sagebrush with creeks cutting through them, bordered by willow bushes, their autumn leaves glowing bright yellow. The land and sky are truly vast here; on a clear day, I could see at least 20 miles in either direction.
It was past the summer season, so the Center was pretty quiet–only a few permanent staff staying in their houses, plus one night where a horse and mule showed up in the paddock across from the apartment I stayed in. At first, I had a hard time sleeping–it was so dark and quiet. So dark, in fact, that Sawtooths are part of the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve. On many nights I could see the Milky Way; for a couple of nights, I also had a spectacular view of the Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Comet. There was no cell phone reception in my apartment, so I had to walk up a small hill to get service. Every morning and evening I walked up “cell phone hill” to check my messages, but also to watch the sunrise and sunset, which offered me a different dramatic palette every single time.
The ecology of the Sawtooths was completely new to me, so I approached the residency as a relationship-building process. I hiked every day, through forests, wetlands, and meadows to some of the hundreds of glacial lakes that are scattered throughout the NRA. At first, the hiking was difficult: I live at 200 feet above sea level and the Sawtooth Valley is at about 6,300 feet, with some of my hikes at up to 9,500 feet. October is past peak tourist season for the area, so I frequently had the trails and lakes to myself, which forced me to confront my fear of hiking alone. In California, I would rarely do so due to the presence of mountain lions, even in the Oakland and Berkeley hills. In the Sawtooths, I was reassured that large animal sightings are very rare, so I told myself a new story: that the forest, instead of being my predator, was my protector.
Being out in this landscape with few other humans around, all of my senses were activated. As if I had cleared out all of the mental garbage that had accumulated in me during what has been a painful, often beautiful, but also stressful year. I felt grateful to be totally present and attuned to the living, breathing web around me. During my hikes, I gathered soil, rocks, and plants, and sketched. Each time, I mapped my path on my phone as documentation.
The Sawtooth Mountains, and its nearby forests and river valleys, were created by dynamic geologic forces, still evident in the etched peaks marked with streaks of dramatically toned volcanic soils running downslope. At my temporary home and studio, I made soil pigments and watercolors, pressed plants, and did soil chromatography, focusing on soils I gathered from areas that had experienced forest fires, either very recently (the 2024 Wapiti Fire) or decades ago. I also gathered burned wood to use as charcoal.
My understanding of the ecology of the Sawtooths was greatly aided by my conversations with Forest service staff, including the Sawtooth NRA Botanist Deb Taylor, and with Paul Link, a retired geology professor and one of the authors of the revised edition of Roadside Geology of Idaho. I am so grateful to them for sharing their knowledge with me.
Now I’m back home in eastern Pennsylvania, continuing to work with the materials I brought back from Idaho. They are keeping me connected to a landscape that I am really missing. I am doing experiments for work that I’ll exhibit in the Sawtooth area sometime next year; the idea is to map my experience, using visual data, drawing, painting, collage and printmaking. I am looking forward to sharing more as the work evolves.
