Slot Canyon
Mixed media, 12 x 12 x 2″
Slot canyons are dead-end, often deep, narrow gorges. From above they look like scar fissures snaking through rocky landscape. You can come up to the rim edge of one and not be aware of its presence. Livestock can become trapped in slot canyons as could military units, miners, trappers and immigrants travelling West. Native people made the most of what the slots had to offer when hunting or at war. Slots are harshly artful ancient geologic features gouged into the Earth’s surface.
Artist Statement
The architecture of geology rivals anything we design and build. I try to reconstruct my sense of geologic architecture on a small scale: texture, angles, fit and juxtaposition, surface, and the definite sense of weight. I use construction materials and tools to build up, take down, carve, shift and rebuild surfaces on boards. A board is a solid base for the construction process that in a sense replicates the geologic process. I keep that metaphor in mind during the construction. ‘Construction’ is how I see it.
