Throughout the duration of this class, we read the book ‘Desert Solitaire’ by Edward Abbey. This book was about the arid American west and desert, and gave insights into the life of early white inhabitants. Abbey was an avid environmentalist, and stood to defend the landscapes that he adored and recreated on. In the book he dived into the different aspects of the desert, such as water scarcity and the abundance of rock and sand throughout the landscape. He also wrote about glen canyon, a magical place, historically inhabited by Native Americans who lived in little caves within the sides of the canyon. Eventually, the area would be dammed, and the canyons with their contents flooded. This left an impression, and led me down a rabbit hole of environmental movements in the American west and my area. As our final project, we wanted to represent landscapes that meant a lot to us. What we eventually came up with, was to laser cut maps into boards of wood. The result was really cool and was one of my favorite projects so far.
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“Water, water, water…. There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount, a perfect ratio of water to rock, of water to sand, insuring that wide, free, open, generous spacing between plants and animals, homes and towns and cities, which makes the arid West so different from any other part of the nation.” – Abbey, Desert solitaire (126) |