Untitled (Self Portrait)

By Amy Catherine Hulshoff
Rio Grande Headwaters, CO
August 30, 2017

I hiked to about 12,290 feet to get to the Highland Mary Lakes. On the way up I would stop and draw on different surfaces with a length of yarn predetermined by certain measurements of my own body. At the top, on the shores of one of the lakes, I found myself unable to move, my feet were screaming for me to just sit still for a minute. So I was staring mostly at the ground and traced the cracks in the dried mud with my eyes. Like the peaks of the canyon we were camping in, even the numerous and delimited cracks were difficult to cope with and take in all at once. Using the yarn I am able to essentialize a pattern in the cracks, and with each push of my fingers tips I gently lined the cracks with the red string, learning intimate details and textures.

The line is informed by the topography of the dirt, but the intervention of the colored string into the naturally formed cracks becomes a type of self-portrait, warped to the agency of the found earth, and not entirely an imposition of my own will. I will try and push more of my own physical self into the image or at the very least document the process of the unification of human and non-human agencies. Forming an intimate and genuine relationship between the dirt and myself is an essential step in establishing an eco-sexual companionship that will involve sincere listening and looking on my part to exchange knowledge with the environment.