For Protection

By Kaitlin Bryson

Valle Vidal

October 2, 2016

Usually I find burned forests to be a special kind of graveyard.  A point of interest, and the place where I first typically wander off to (if it’s available).  I like these places because I can usually see exciting moments of re-composition happening.  Bursts of new life transforming what has been lost to something that will recoup.  It is a place of great metaphor, as well as an embodiment of nutrient exchange – of life’s vitality, many examples of things I genuinely revere.  

However, in this burned Ponderosa forest, I see a different world.  It is one of real death, but without the beauty of rebirth happening close behind.  There are subtle moments but most profoundly, there is mass starving and dehydration.  The old Ponderosa trees are petrified nearly to dust, and there are baby saplings barely holding on.  Plants that are usually so tolerant and forgiving of adverse conditions and soil, like mullein and sage, are scarce – or only stretch up from the ground a couple of inches.  

I was shocked to find out the fire that passed through happened 12 years ago.  With that amount of time I would expect a substantially more vivid recovery.  Speaking with Jessie, a native to Valle Vidal, I learned the slow recovery is largely due to the Elk grazing on the saplings, who are desperately fighting to take hold and reconstruct the forest.  The Elk have plenty of grasslands to graze on, but overpopulation (due to the removal of their predators) causes them to graze in new and unusual areas.  If these saplings were able to grow it would cause a ripple effect for the entire forest ecology.  Moisture would be held in the ground, fungi would repopulate the soil community and nutrients and water would be distributed throughout.  Erosion and sun scald would be scarce – instead of the plant life, and a diverse range of wildlife would return, creating a more balanced system.  Learning about this situation made the human/ecological interconnection more evident to me than ever before.  

After spending many days wandering through this forest I decided I wanted to make a fence around a baby sapling in hopes of protecting it and allowing it to grow past the Elk’s reach.  The attempt was futile, due to my lack of proper materials, and the fact that there were many saplings who needed a nursery – not just one.  But, the action did make me think about the importance of protection, and the metaphorical act of establishing a personal boundary around yourself for that protection in order to foster and nurse some kind of growth.   Even if that line might be illusionary or just a constructed ‘idea’ of safety, it is still necessary and vital for personal development.

Incognito at Valle Vidal

By Molly Zimmer

Valle Vidal, NM

October 2, 2016

The Valle Vidal has a very special connection with me because of my previous visit several summer ago, where I fell in love with the expansive meadows. Revisiting the “Val” as we nicknamed it gave me a deeper connection with this location; and the lasting impression of the pine forest smells, and drastic changes of feeling concealed in the forests one moment, and the next exposed on the open meadows.

In response to the upcoming hunting season that opens for Elk on October 8, 2016, and my interest in the way that shapes and shadows  merge and disappear into the forest when you pass by led me to the question: How can I create an embodied experience of a brush or tool made of pine branches that plays with this visual camouflage that happens in the shadows, and addresses one aspect of how movement creates gesture?

My response was to create a full-body pine needle suit that I could mount on myself, and transform the safari woman tourist into a creature of the landscape.

https://youtu.be/IM4y3tXKbBE

Crossing the Wide Expanse

By Nancy Dewhurst
Valle Vidal, NM
October 1, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRUx2yU80wc

TEMP TA TION

By Hamshya Rajkumar

Valle Vidal

October 1, 2016

The nights are cold here. We stare at the fire. It draws us in. Everyone looks slightly possessed. Lines from Heaven 17’s Temptation entered my mind especially when Rachel noted how tempted she was to the fire. (I have been having many songs entered my head, the organs from the Doors’ Riders of the storm, “your imagination” part from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and fruit salad yummy yummy plagued me)

I then immediately wanted to have an 80’s dance party to warm us up during cold nights with killer speakers in the Valle Vidal’s wide grassy meadows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLTeZBmKuF8

Ghost Water

By Hollis Moore

Valle Vidal

October 4, 2016

The Valle Vidal left me with an impression of ghosts. While hiking throughout the canyons the first 2 day I came across: barbed wire, remnants of hunted elk, campsite platforms, an old wooden trailer, windmills, fracking sites, dirt roads, water meters, horseshoes, logged trees, old railroads, graveyards, and the historic Ring Ranch.

At Shuree ponds, another abandoned structure, the mad-made fishing ponds were infested with algae. I came across Ryan fishing and he showed me how the trout got stuck in the algae when he released them...soon to become ghost trout. I harvested a couple pounds of the algae and dried it out (despite it’s fishy smell).  When dry, the algae resembled green wool and I decided to weave the strands together. I made a hat for the ghost of McCrystal Creek and floated it downstream. In a matter of minutes the transformed back into heavy, wet slime and sank to the bottom.

Drying out algae, photo Ruth Le Gear

McCrystal Creek ghost hat

Hat lined with tarp for floatation and pH strips to take a reading of the water quality

Releasing the hat into McCrystal Creek

Floating down McCrystal Creek

Waterlogged hat sinking to the bottom of the creek

Ghost water tag on soggy algae hat

Tree Improvement

By Rachel Zollinger

Valle Vidal

October 2, 2016

NEW MEXICO

STATE FORESTRY

TREE IMPROVEMENT

PARENT SELECTION

STAND NO._____

TREE NO._____

T.___ R.___ SEC.___

IF THIS TREE IS IN DANGER

NOTIFY: STATE FORESTRY

OR

MORA RESEARCH CENTER

Shenanigans

By Paula D. Barteau

Valle Vidal

September 27, 2015

The stream here is so clear that you can see the fish that live there in perfect detail, even though they're too fast to be studied. I watched the fish for hours. They are so small and beautiful, about the length of my hand.

There are Rosehips growing along the bank. I picked some and made rose hip syrup to go with breakfast to keep away the cold everyone seems to be peripherally fighting.

Harriet picked some and made tea that we drank on the river bank.

I wanted to be connected to this place, so I asked Clark to sew me into the bank of the stream. It was cold.

I invited everyone to have their faces painted and don capes and fly a kite with me.

This site has been so much fun. Everyone has projects and performances going on.

Eleanora dug an earth oven and invited us all to eat the bread and vegetables she baked in it all day.

CB and Clark built a Zozobro out of willow shoots for us to burn our worries in at the end of the trip.

Clark set up a swing in the woods.

CB hung her paintings in the outhouse and did an official gallery opening in the toilet, complete with fancy drinks.

Harriet brushed her hair for the first time this year, with stunning results.

And Erin and Andrea put on a performance the last night of our trip. To find it we had to walk through the dark, following a string from tree to tree by touch until we happened upon a candlelight flickering through the trees.

Fall Coloured Drive

By Harriet Fawcett

Valle Vidal

September 26, 2015

There is something magical about the time of year when the trees start changing colour and their own yearly ritual of preparation for the winter months begins.

The drive to Valle Vidal was beautiful. I feel most privilege to have witnessed the trees starting to turn this picturesque glistening shade of gold. The turning trees dotted across the landscape in clusters, when looking out of the van I caught glimpses of the beautiful flashes of autumn colours red, yellow, purple, black, orange, pink and brown all shooting past the window as we drove.  Time flies much quicker when you’re occupied with such beauty.

I brought a teapot with me to Ville Vidal. I wanted to engage with the landscape over the very British custom of Afternoon Tea. Making use of the resources around me I spent two consecutive mornings collecting rosehip berries and wild mint from the surrounding area. I reached out to the individual who told me of their location and invited them to join me for tea at the site where earlier that day we harvested the vegetation. I wanted to allow for another sensory stimuli to come into play while experiencing the surrounding area, allowing for our Connection to place to blossom through the use of taste.

 

Foraging for Rosehip berries by the stream

 

Rosehip tea in the location where we were foraging

Forgotten Entries

By Sarah Molina

Valle Vidal

September 26- October 1, 2015

092615

Driving. Driving. Driving.

23:07

092715

No entry.

00:00

092815

No entry.

00:00

092915

No entry.

00:00

093015

No entry.

00:00

093115

No entry.

00:00

Somewhere during this time I carved ear plugs (“gauges”) out of wood, swung on a swing that was hung over 6 feet off the ground, ate food with my hands from an “earth oven,” and ran down a hill at full speed, with my face painted, and flying a kite.

potty paintings

By CB Bryan

Valle Vidal

September 29, 2015

I put my paintings up in the west pit latrine of the Valle Vidal campsite. There amongst the buzzing flies and the smell of human waste, four paintings hung for around seven hours.

I have an intensely hard time showing and displaying work. I often feel embarrassed or guarded when faced with the prospect of showing my paintings to others. On the other hand, the thought of sharing makes me work harder. In Valle Vidal, I found that I was more driven once I had given myself the task of hanging these little guys in the campground. The setting allowed for my fellow land artists to see what I had been doing as well as for those who I did not know to see something totally out of the ordinary. Now I am on to the next bathroom/ “stranger than strange” gallery.