Water

By Hamshya Rajkumar

Big Bend State Park, TX

October 23, 2016

I went on a journey with Rachel today to track down water. We chased the water. We followed its meandering carve in the landscape. We saw its trace without a physical watery presence. We wandered its path and experienced everything it would.

Until we found a spring. With life spreading from it.

Water is very much so alive

Perhaps more so than we are nowadays.

Erasing Tracks

By Molly Zimmer

Big Bend State Park, TX

October 23, 2016

I found it to be very strange, and also very important that we were staying in the Aranosa Campground in Big Bend State Park of Texas. It is located right next to the Rio Grande River, concluding our journey of seeing the beginning of the river in Headwaters, Creede, Colorado to where it becomes a border with the United States and Texas.

I began to wonder about if anybody had crossed where our campground was, and what would I do if I encountered somebody crossing the river?

How do I know how many people have crossed here? Would they cover their tracks? What kinds of materials would they try to conceal their steps with? How is the river one form of erasure? What kind of tool could I create to demonstrate people dreams of crossing unseen?

I ended up creating a broom that acts as an eraser- smoothing out the sand on the road. Utilizing the invasive grass species that grows along the river, I fashioned this broom to erase my steps, but no matter what tools I made another type of mark was always left. A trail of the distance I had traveled was imprinted into the sand.

Corals to water snakes to bobcats oh my!

By Hollis Moore

Big Bend State Park, TX

October 31, 2016

I walked up the Rio Grande from X to X (see above photo). The walk was an action to remember what lives downstream…A suggestion to find common ground in a split landscape by thinking about what two countries share… A walk up instead of across.

The Rio Grande at this point becomes the border between Texas and Mexico until it reaches the Gulf of Mexico. It is here in Big Bend, that Energy Transfer Partners is planning on installing the Trans-Pecos pipeline underneath the Rio Grande. The pipeline will be near enough to groundwater and surface water that if it explodes or leaks it will cause an environmental disaster.

The Rio Grande’s mouth is in the Gulf of Mexico. I wonder how the river acts as a lifeline for the Gulf, which is still recovering from the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill? Maybe it helps to flush out the contaminated salt water and sediment? If the Rio Grande does act like vein to the Gulf of Mexico, then why would we risk contaminating the Rio Grande (more than it already is)?

With these questions on my mind I walked upstream to give a voice to the marine animals and plants of the Gulf. I thought about the animals and plants I encountered over the summer while volunteering for a coral restoration project. Maybe the stories of the victims from one environmental disaster can help prevent another.

What I didn’t know during my walk was what animals I would encounter along the way. The water was too filled with milky, green sediment for me to look into the river. I noticed some dark, slithery creatures skirt away as I walked closer-probably river otters. I heard a couple of splashes and once stepped on something moving-most likely trout or catfish. I also saw something that looked like the head of a turtle, which may have been the Rio Grande slider. Or, much to my startled dismay could have been any of the dozens snakes that live in the area. Apparently all snakes can swim and rattlesnakes can even swim underwater!

Most exciting though was my encounter with a bobcat. As dusk, on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, something caught my eye. I don’t know how long the bobcat had been watching me, but when I noticed it we looked at each other for several minutes. I thought the bobcat looked curious. Inside I felt enthralled, but also calm and honestly quite comfortable. I will remember the bobcat always.

The bobcat, the river otters, fish, turtles, swimming serpents, and birds, that I met during my upstream walk deserve a voice before the Trans-Pecos pipeline is installed. This is a wild, prosperous desert ecosystem in Bend Bend and we cannot let the oil and gas companies obliterate the wildlife as they did to the dolphins, whales, birds, fish, corals, and sea turtles in the Gulf during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Atlatl

By Nancy Dewhurst

Big Bend State Park, TX

November 1, 2016

We are at the Big Bend State Park, on the Texan side of the border between Texas and Mexico. The Rio Grande divides the two. At the Centre for Big Bend Studies at the Sul Ross State University we learned about the Atlatl (among other things) - a spear-throwing tool used by Native Americans up to 30,000 years ago in the Big Bend area and around the Southwest. The Atlatl would serve as an extension to the arm, allowing the hunter to achieve greater velocity in their throw.

I was enthralled by the idea of these ‘arm extensions’ and immediately began thinking about other devices I could create to extend the length of my arm and my throwing power.

I spent the first two days at Big Bend creating giant spoons - the handles made from Yucca stalks and the bowls made from wire and woven grass.

For the rest of the time I explored these objects, their relation to my body, and their relation to the space I was in. Throwing stones and mud across the river, I explored the notion of ‘border’ - who owns the fluid space of the river? Whirling the spoons in the air, I claimed ownership to the wind.

Water in the Desert

By Rachel Zollinger

Big Bend State Park, TX

October 23, 2016

Check out her video at https://youtu.be/MQr1NGbq-xM

Lifelines

By Kaitlin Bryson

Big Bend State Park, TX

October 24, 2016

Today I sat on the banks of the Rio Grande and offered my hand to the Rio.  With needles collected from a nearby Prickly Pear Cactus, I tattooed the line of the river into and around the side of my hand. This gesture is a form of acknowledgement; the Rio is now embedded into my lifelines, just as I am woven into its systems.  

As we traveled down the Rio Grande this semester learning and thinking about water rights, it has become incredibly clear that the Rio is a living being and is the tie that binds it all together.  It is a visceral link, a blood line that runs through the land, which supports and nourishes every aspect of life in the Southwest.  It connects all of the varying strata – the lives of humans and nonhumans, culture, spirituality, history, and ecology – into a dynamic and ever-changing system.

I see the completed line on my hand only as the beginning of this piece.  It is a mark that will most certainly change, just as the Rio itself does.  I will document and record the shifts, erosion, and changes that this line undergoes as I continue to work for//with//within this watershed and bioregion.  

Obsession

By Clark Frauenglass

Big Bend

October 17, 2015

The area we are camped is surrounded by mesas. Each one has it’s own distinct geological characteristics. I’ve become obsessed with collecting rocks, I cannot stop picking them up! My hands and knees are covered in cuts and bruises from scrambling all over the cliff sides after selenite crystals and weird volcanic composites. I went down particularly hard right on top of a cactus and have been pulling spines out of my belly all evening.

Make Do and Improvise

By Harriet Fawcett

Big Bend

October 18, 2015

Make Do and improvise the motto of today’s excursion to Mexico. Clark and I took Paula’s sledge to Mexico. We swam across, to collect clay.  We still haven’t learnt. Ziploc bags are possibly the worst thing to collect clay in but there the only thing we have at hand so I guess we had to make do. Four Ziploc bags of clay from Mexico and four from Texas. With no way of carrying them back we floated them down the Rio Grande. We still have to figure out a way of transporting the clay back to Albuquerque in these shitty Ziploc bags. We didn’t think this one through.  

Flower of Stone, and other special sightings and stabby things

By Paula D. Barteau

Big Bend 

October 19, 2015

I found several clumps of what I believe was Selaginella lepidophylla or Flower of Stone, an ancient species of desert plant that can survive total dehydration in a dormant state and revitalize when exposed to water. 

Flower of Stone

I feel like there is a consciousness in the rocks here that might function in the same way. This place feels old and tough and graceful, like it's hovering on the edge of sleep, just watching to see what happens, like it might wake up at any moment.

Prehistoric smile

I made a nest of thorns out of that feeling.

Nest of Thorns

Eggs of Stone

I found a piece of string in a puddle that was not in fact a piece of string, but two worms mating. They were each between one or two feet long and about the diameter of an angel-hair pasta.  I think there was a colony of bees living under a rock next to the puddle who came out in large numbers to drink from it.

Tiny Crystal nest

I went for a hike one morning and got completely absorbed in my own thoughts when my foot slipped and I sat down to keep from falling, only to realize that a herd of 15-20 Javilina were crossing the mesa about a quarter of a mile bellow me. They were sprawled across the mesa, each taking their own path down from the hill, but all of them made their way to a small sand stone arch at the bottom of the mesa and passed through it single file on their journey. I didn't have my camera with me and when I went back the next day they didn't show up.

Javalina trajectory map

mobile gravy #bigbendtx

By CB Bryan

Big Bend 

October 20, 2015

Mobile gravy rolled through Austin, Marfa and now we’re at the Big Bend State Park in West Texas.

The students from Land Arts of the American west were surprised to see us at breakfast, (usually they cook food for one another) but this time we served them some of our brand new menu options.

Mobile Gravy co-operator and cook -- CB talks to Annee, a Land Arts participant about her favorite options from our brand new menu!

One Land Arts participant, Rotxie snaps a photo of her Toast with our signature ‘Rainbow Gravy’ side! Thanks, Rotxie!!

Our wonderful supporters in #bigbendtx

Co-operator and cook, Kacie serves an avocado citrus salad with a side of sushi and a wheatgrass elixir.

The Henel Reading room -- dedicated to our friend and occasional driver Ryan

Thanks for such a great pitstop, Land Arts 2k15! Our next stop is Albuquerque, NM!