Craters of the Moon: A Project of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts

Craters of the Moon A Project of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts

Ack n ow l ed gem en ts

Exhibition Sun Valley Center for the Arts May 20–July 30, 2016 Installation Craters of the Moon National Monument May 20–October 1, 2016 City of Ketchum Beginning October 15, 2016

Cover Binh Danh, North Crater Flow Trail at Craters of the Moon #2, 2013, original cameraexposed daguerreotype, courtesy the artist; Haines ­Gallery, San Francisco; and Lisa Sette Gallery, Phoenix

Back Cover Top Image John Grade, Spur (at Craters of the Moon), 2016, Alaskan yellow cedar, courtesy the artist; Davidson Galleries, Seattle; and Cynthia-Reeves, NH and MA; photo: Dev Khalsa

Back Cover Bottom Image Jason Middlebrook, Homage to the Limber Pine (1,000 Years of High Winds, Heavy Snows and Countless Gazes) (at Craters of the Moon), 2016, steel, fiberglass and slate, courtesy the artist; Lora Reynolds Gallery, ­Austin; Monique Meloche ­Gallery, Chicago; and Gallery 16, San ­Francisco; photo: Dev Khalsa

Like many good things, The Center’s Craters of the Moon project began as a series of conversations. Initial meetings between curators and rangers, biologists and artists, city council members and arts advocates offered opportunities to think about ways of integrating art into our landscape. Out of these conversations, energy for the Craters of the Moon exhibition coalesced, bringing together a group of partners willing to nurture a project that required all of us to step outside our comfort zone. We shared a desire to realize an exhibition and public art project that would celebrate this region’s unique geology and history, and allow visitors and residents to see and experience the landscape in a fresh way.

Many people and organizations played a part in realizing that goal. From the start, the board of directors of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts and the Ketchum Arts Commission have been keen to use this opportunity to create something both significant and lasting for the community. Our partners at the National Park Service—specifically the rangers at Craters of the Moon National Monument—have been broad-minded in their support for reframing the park’s interpretative opportunities through the lens of art and artists. Blaine County

Recreation District and Idaho Foundation for Parks and Lands staff and board members have also welcomed the chance to consider new ways of enhancing their visitors’ experience of the lands under their supervision.

While commissioning public sculpture is not something these institutions typically undertake, each drew energy from the other’s willingness to step into uncharted territory. Together, we’ve embraced shared risk and collective gain. It has been an enormous pleasure to work with each of these organizations. At a time when polarities are often emphasized over shared values, it has been rewarding to witness the collective commitment of organizations with a wide range of missions to realize this project and exhibition.

In addition to these efforts, a number of foundations and individuals offered financial support for the exhibition, as well as for Jason Middlebrook and John Grade’s sculptures. With gratitude, we acknowledge The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the City of Ketchum, the National Endowment for the Arts (under the Imagine Your Parks initiative), and the Robert Lehman Foundation.

Additionally, we offer thanks to the following individuals, whose support for The Center and the arts is inspiring: Ellen Hanson

and Richard Perlman, Kathy and Joe Hardiman, Judith and ­Richard Smooke, Carol Swig, Jeri L. Wolfson, Barbara and Tod Hamachek, Sarah and David Woodward, Leslie and ­Michael Lanahan, Michael S. Engl Family Foundation, Kathleen and Brian Bean, The Dawson Family, Jeanne Meyers and Richard Carr, and Tim Mott and Pegan Brooke.

In the end, we are connected by artists. They step into the world willing to share their ­questions, their perspectives and their personal impressions with skill, grace and wonder.

The five artists engaged in the exhibition present work that reflects their personal relationship with the park and their link to the land. Their significant energies and talents offer all of us a chance to see Craters of the Moon and the geologic and social history of Southern Idaho through a new lens. We are grateful for their vision, their generosity and their time.

Kristin Poole Artistic Director Courtney Gilbert Curator of Visual Arts

C R AT E R S O F THE MOON

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

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oming to know a place takes commitment, time and a focused attention that is elusive in our 21st century world. And yet, for many of us, the land—Idaho’s land—is the reason we came here.

We came for the opportunity to live in and know this landscape, not as an abstract idea, but as a powerful reality that is as stern as it is nurturing. As an organization committed to presenting art that resonates with our community’s interests, the Sun Valley Center for the Arts occasionally embarks on projects that draw attention to the complexity of the region’s ecosystems and illuminate the relationship we have with this unique physical environment.

Kristin P oo l e Artistic Director

The idea that we could use the perspective of artists to more fully experience the Craters of the Moon landscape in the centennial year of the National Park Service seemed an obvious choice, and an exciting one. The National Park system has a long history with artists and writers who have not only documented the details of the parks, but were instrumental in the very creation of the park system—a system Wallace Stegner claimed was “the best idea we ever had” as a nation. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, photographer Carleton Watkins, painters Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran, and writer John Muir all played significant roles in convincing government leaders to set aside certain lands to be shared and cared for by the nation. Inviting artists to spend time looking, wandering and considering a park is a way for all of us to approach a landscape and become introduced, either for the first time or in a new way, to that which makes it special.

Sculpted by centuries of lava flows and wind, Craters of the Moon National Monument is a place where geology and the power of the planet’s structure are acutely present. It is a compelling destination for any visitor, and particularly attractive to artists whose work is inspired by the land. Craters is not your typical national park: there are no ah-ha views of cascading waterfalls, no snowcapped peaks or charging rivers. Instead, it is a place of minimal vegetation and few creatures. It is stark, rugged and windy. But its profound visual contrasts create a beauty that is as unique as it is powerful.

In 2010, painter Cindy Tower approached the rangers at Craters of the Moon National Monument and asked if, in exchange for a ranger’s hat and shirt, she could do some paintings in the park.

Some of the works included in the exhibition at The Center are the result of Tower’s time at Craters, and they represent the beginning of the park rangers’ interest in having artists ­interpret the lands under their stewardship.

The rangers at Craters understood that art, as well as science, could engage people in learning about the park’s ecology, history and biologic systems. It is because of their willingness to engage in a new kind of interpretation that The Center has been able to undertake this project.

Cindy Tower, Blue Pool, 2011, mixed media on canvas, courtesy the artist and Ochi Gallery, Ketchum

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Jason Middlebrook, limber pine sketch in progress at Craters of the Moon, 2015 Jason Middlebrook, Homage to the Limber Pine (1,000 Years of High Winds, Heavy Snows and Countless Gazes) (detail), 2016, steel, fiberglass and slate, courtesy the artist; Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin; Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago; and Gallery 16, San Francisco; photo: Dev Khalsa

Two years after Tower’s first visit to Craters, The Center committed to this exhibition. It soon became evident that to benefit fully from this investigation of landscape, we needed artwork that was created for the park, in the park, offering an opportunity at the site for visitors to see through artists’ eyes. A very short list of artists who had both public art experience and a strong interest in the ecology and geology of place included artists Jason Middlebrook, who The Center had previously exhibited, and John Grade, who was realizing large-scale projects in response to the environment throughout the country. In the winter of 2015, John Grade and Jason Middlebrook independently visited Craters, skiing and snowshoeing through the park with Courtney Gilbert and me.

As we toured the monument together, Jason Middlebrook’s curiosity about ecology was immediately evident as he focused on one of the primary species that define the park—the limber pine tree. These trees, aptly named for their pliability in the face of harsh weather conditions, stand out in the rolling black landscape.

Middlebrook was enchanted by their wind-sculpted forms and the burnished silver trunks of the dead trees. During his initial journey he pocketed a few pinecones; he then returned in the fall to sketch a number of the dead trees. His sculpture, Homage to the Limber Pine, honors a species that not only survives in a harsh environment, but is as beautiful in death as in life.

While the inspiration for Jason Middlebrook’s art is the natural world and the ecological systems that shape it, each of his works is grounded in art history and popular culture. His interpretations of natural form are based on keen observation, but the scale, color or material he chooses prompts viewers to reimagine the subject. In the exhibition, Middlebrook offers an enormous painted pinecone. By isolating and enlarging the form, he triggers a reconsideration of the object—both its form and its role in life cycles. For the last decade, his practice has included a series of works on wooden planks.

Neither sculpture nor painting, they are formal constructions where precise, brightly hued lines are painted on naturally shaped slabs of wood. The wood surfaces tell of growth and the passage of time, while the painted abstract images suggest skate parks, surf shacks and Bridget Riley’s canvases. This dichotomy between natural, organic forms and contemporary culture is at the heart of Middlebrook’s practice.

Middlebrook is aware of man’s sometimes fractious relationship with nature, and he appreciates the potential his work has to draw attention to issues of conservation. However, his stated desire to first make objects of beauty precludes his art from becoming didactic. It is, in fact, his appreciation for the formal properties of trees— their form and texture—that directed his choices for this work. To create a tree that is nearly the same scale, color and form of those in the park

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was a conscious decision to make a work that blended into the landscape. The hard stone slabs he chose for the mosaic surface mimic the color of the trees while honoring their durability. The tilt of Middlebrook’s sculpture testifies to the mark of weather and time that is evident in every tree in the park. Hoping to prompt park visitors to acknowledge the beauty of this species, Middlebrook requested that his man-made tree be placed in an area where there were also living and dead limber pines. He wanted the work to be a surprise, requiring viewers to do a double take, and, in so doing, heighten the act of seeing and noticing.

Jason Middlebrook, Homage to the Limber Pine (1,000 Years of High Winds, Heavy Snows and Countless Gazes) (at Craters of the Moon), 2016, steel, fiberglass and slate, courtesy the artist; Lora Reynolds Gallery, ­Austin; Monique Meloche ­Gallery, Chicago; and Gallery 16, San ­Francisco; photo: Dev Khalsa

The desire to use artwork to encourage looking—an active seeing that triggers respect and wonder for natural systems—is shared by both Jason Middlebrook and John Grade. It is the evident volcanic geology of Craters, a land shaped by weather and dramatic upheavals of the earth, that caught John Grade’s imagination and interest for this project. After spending a cold winter night sleeping on the edge of a crater, Grade came away eager to design a work that would invite viewers to consider the geologic systems that define the park. The shape and size of organic organisms, both large and small, has been a steady source of inspiration for Grade, and it was the structure and texture of the lava tube that inspired Spur.

Working with the park rangers, Grade took a digital map of one of the park’s lava tubes and spent the next eight months building an interpretation of that tube out of Alaskan yellow cedar. Grade conceived a sculpture that people would move through—recreating

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the experience of cave exploration—but one that also serves to focus your view of the landscape and the hidden systems that created it.

Grade’s Spur invites exploration. Interested in how people physically experience place, he built a sculpture that considers where your eyes land, which elements invite your touch. The piece is carefully crafted; its arches and twists are built to suggest movement and honor the wood’s ability to feel both solid and fluid at the same time.

Within Spur’s latticed, open form and tapered entrances and exits, you can be within the space and look through it simultaneously. The ribs of this open arched form ­create staccatoed light and frame views to the mountains beyond. The carved, charred interior urges the viewer to recognize a ­geologic system that turned fire into porous black stone.

Conscious that the sculpture will eventually be placed in Ketchum along the former rail line that created Sun Valley, Grade chose to build the work from timber that is sized and blackened to resemble railroad ties. The parallel horizontal elements that knit the sculpture’s ribs together are a further link to that history, mimicking the track of the railroad. The title, Spur, acknowledges that the rail line that created the resort was a divergence from the mainline that traveled west to east, and the rhythmic sporadic light that one feels traveling via train is honored in the movement through the sculpture’s ribs.

John Grade, Spur (details), 2016, Alaskan yellow cedar, courtesy the artist; Davidson Galleries, Seattle; and Cynthia-Reeves, NH and MA

private, studio-based art making to a large scale public art practice that, out of a desire to understand the places where he works, has developed to include botanists, oceanographers, engineers, urban planners and studio assistants. This scientific, social and artistic support system is now as much a part of John Grade’s work as the hands-on making.

Grade’s curiosity to learn and explore is the foundation of his art. It is also what makes interacting with his sculptures so inviting.

Building sculpture that can be experienced first with your body was part of Grade’s impetus to move to large-scale works. I was yearning for people just to take the objects on their own scale and on their own terms. He understood that if he was successful in creating a powerful physical experience, he might prompt a shift in perspective or an interest in the land. His desire is simple: to have you do what he does—marvel at the systems at work in the natural world.

John Grade’s and Jason Middlebrook’s public works are less about dominating the landscape than facilitating an open experience in a specific place. To create sculpture in a public environment implies democratic access. The control of the work is given up in a real sense as it is seen and vetted outside of the art world with a less restrictive, prescribed lens. Public art creates an opportunity, and it is up to the viewer to choose to participate. In inviting us to look and touch, these works offer a chance for a heightened awareness of the place in which they are sited.

Artists begin with what is known, what is visible, and then make it their own. In conjunction with the other artists in the exhibition, Middlebrook and Grade offer a personal reflection of what resonated for them in this protected natural space. The exhibition is the sum of five discrete responses, but it is also an invitation to create our own interpretation of the park. These artists offer their work so that we might better see and experience what is evident before us.

John Grade, Spur (at Craters of the Moon), 2016, Alaskan yellow cedar, courtesy the artist; Davidson Galleries, Seattle; and Cynthia-Reeves, NH and MA; photo: Dev Khalsa

Born from decades-long interest in the earth’s systems, Grade’s sculptures are created to interact with rather than withstand natural forces around them. His installations are nearly always made from organic materials and intended to be consumed or weathered by the environment in which they are situated. A few years ago, he was inspired by an algal microorganism that creates layers of thick sediment on the sea floor. The result was a multi-part biodegradable sculpture that was installed in an old church and then, after a procession through the city streets, was walked into the sea to disintegrate. In 2014, Grade cast a 140-year-old hemlock tree and then recreated it from thousands of hand-shaped, two-inch-long rectangles of wood. After the sculpture, entitled Middle Fork, travels to museums throughout the world, it will be placed at the foot of the original tree and allowed to decompose into the forest floor.

For Grade, this notion of change and evolution is embedded in every aspect of his art making, including that of his own growth as an artist. Over the last decade his artistic practice has evolved from

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Cou rt n e y Gil b ert

Curator of Visual Arts

John Grade, model for Spur, 2016, teak, courtesy the artist; Davidson Galleries, Seattle; and CynthiaReeves, NH and MA; photo: Dev Khalsa

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he Center’s Craters of the Moon project considers a uniquely Western environment. Located about an hour’s drive from Sun Valley, Craters of the Moon is, in the words of President Calvin Coolidge, “a weird and scenic landscape peculiar to itself.” It evolved during eight volcanic eruptions that occurred 15,000 to 2,000 years ago.

(The hot spot underneath Yellowstone National Park is the same one that created Craters’ lava fields.) Craters is a vast sea of lava flows, tubes, caves and cones, dotted with sagebrush and other small areas of vegetation. The area first gained attention when Robert Limbert walked the 50-mile length of its Great Rift in 1920 and then began lobbying for National Park designation. It became a National Monument in 1924.

Craters of the Moon’s beauty is one of sharp contrasts: tiny white buckwheat flowers in vast fields of cinders; jagged lava poking through white snow; black rock against bright blue skies. Its climate can be harsh and its winds punishing. As we began to shape the exhibition, we wanted to bring together work by artists who would respond to Craters from varying points of view and with different types of materials, mirroring the park’s complexity. The five artists (Binh Danh, John Grade, Charles Lindsay, Jason Middlebrook and Cindy Tower) represented in the exhibition present work that ranges from painting to sculpture, from photography to sound and video. They address Craters’ geology and ecology, its role within the greater National Park system, and its history as a site for space science and training.

The story of this exhibition begins with two phone calls. In 2010, Cindy Tower, a painter, sculptor, video and performance artist, called Ted Stout, Craters’ Chief of Interpretation and Education, and asked him to allow her to come to the park as its first ever Artist in Residence. Because Tower had done a project at the Sun Valley

Jason Middlebrook, Limber Pine Studies for Craters, 2015, pencil and charcoal on paper, courtesy the artist; Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin; Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago; and Gallery 16, San Francisco; photo: Dev Khalsa

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Center for the Arts a number of years earlier, Stout called us to discuss the idea of a residency.

At the end of the conversation, he mentioned the 2016 National Park Service Centennial and suggested that our organizations collaborate on some kind of project. At the time, none of us anticipated the scale the project would eventually take, but those two phone calls led six years later to this exhibition and to the commissioning of John Grade’s and Jason Middlebrook’s sculptures.

The paintings Cindy Tower made during her visits to Craters were a natural fit for the exhibition, not just because of her history at the park, but also because of her desire to make artwork that considers the human relationship to the natural environment. As a sculptor, she has made large-scale installations, both indoors and out, using found, recycled materials, to draw attention to the ecological impact of consumer culture.

Cindy Tower, Queen’s Crown, Flow Road and Blue Pool, installation view, photo: Dev Khalsa

A number of years ago, Tower stopped building installations in order to make paintings of what she describes as “installations that already exist on location.” Working in abandoned factories, warehouses and meatpacking facilities, her Workplace paintings depict a world of economic decline, where nature has begun to reclaim the man-made. Craters of the Moon, a national park rather than a crumbling factory, may seem like an odd choice for a painter interested in post-industrial decay, but she was drawn to Craters in part because of the cycles of creation and destruction embedded in its dramatic geological history.

As the park’s first Artist in Residence in 2010, Tower arrived shortly after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which she noted was of the same size as the lava flow at Craters (750,000 acres).

Mixing tar with oil paint, she produced a series of dense, heavy paintings that are meditations on the history of American landscape painting and the way artists have presented public lands. They also address our human relationship to the landscape (as something to be enjoyed or exploited), and the physical textures of Craters itself.

Charles Lindsay’s work considers an entirely different facet of the human relationship to Craters of the Moon—its history as a site for space science. Lindsay is a multimedia artist who works between science and art, integrating sound, image and sculpture with technology. He is Director of the SETI Institute’s Artist in Residence Program, and his curiosity about the universe has led him to view it through both macro and micro lenses, exploring the possibility of intelligent life on other planets and the complexities of ecosystems here on Earth with equal attention and wonder.

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Charles Lindsay, Mining the Moon, installation view

Based in New York, Lindsay has spent long stretches of time in Idaho over the past two decades. Originally trained as a geologist, he is drawn to Craters of the Moon’s extraordinary landscapes to record sounds and video and to make photographs. For this exhibition he created two new sculptural devices and a composite photograph that are part of his Mining the Moon series. Lindsay has made art at NASA Ames Research Center and in this work refers to NASA’s use of Craters of the Moon as a location for research and training since 1969, when Apollo astronauts trained at the park. Space science continues at Craters today; in 2014 two new missions began at the park as NASA looks toward a manned mission to Mars. Lindsay’s Mining the Moon project bridges his research into space science and terrestrial ecosystems.

The sounds emanating from Lindsay’s Deep Time Audio Extraction Device, which resembles a lunar sampler, evoke the experience of visiting Craters of the Moon’s wind-swept landscapes as well as the eerie noises of outer space. His Portable Wormhole Generator presents video imagery made at the park that seems as though it could have been recorded on Mars. These sculptures, like his composite photograph, illuminate the scope of his Mining the Moon project, in which time is flexible in scale, moving from deep to geologic, from recent history to the possibilities inherent in the future.

the park in a van he converted into a traveling darkroom, naming it “Louis” after Louis Daguerre. The experience made Danh feel a sense of ownership of the park as an American citizen.

During his visits to Craters of the Moon, Danh made daguerreotypes of landscapes and volcanic specimens, and portraits of rangers as custodians of the landscape. These works underscore the contribution of photography to Americans’ understanding of and appreciation for our parks. Nineteenth-century photographers, particularly those like Carleton Watkins who worked in the American West, drew attention to the importance of preserving and protecting some of the country’s most extraordinary landscapes. Eventually, their images helped drive the establishment of the National Park Service.

Danh’s work illuminates the reasons we, as curators, were drawn to this project. It gave us the opportunity to reflect upon a landscape that is, to us, very local, but at the same time, part of a larger National Park Service system that comprises more than 400 individual units. From spectacular landscapes to battlefields, cemeteries and more, the National Park Service preserves a tremendous range of natural, historical and cultural resources for all American citizens to enjoy. Examining the park’s different kinds of histories— geological, ecological and social—the artists in this exhibition allow us to better understand Craters of the Moon as both a uniquely wonderful landscape and part of a park system that we, as American citizens, all share.

Binh Danh, North Crater Flow Trail at Craters of the Moon #1, 2013, original cameraexposed daguerreotype, courtesy the artist; Haines G ­ allery, San Francisco; and Lisa Sette Gallery, Phoenix

We invited photographer Binh Danh to make work at Craters of the Moon as part of a larger project he is pursuing about the National Parks and what it means to be an American citizen. Danh is well known for his experimental work with photographic techniques.

Early in his career, he invented a way of creating chlorophyll prints, placing photographic negatives of images from the Vietnam War on leaves and exposing them to the sun for a few days. He approaches photography with scientific rigor, and began learning to make daguerreotypes, one of the earliest photographic techniques, 10 years ago. Invented by Louis Daguerre, daguerreotypes are unique images created in-camera on silvered copper plates.

Danh began perfecting his daguerreotype technique during a project about Yosemite National Park. Growing up in the United States after leaving Vietnam with his family at age 2, he had always wanted to see Yosemite, which he knew only through famous photographs. When he visited the park, he documented it in daguerreotypes (utilizing a 19th-century technique to photograph a place that came into national consciousness in the 1860s). He traveled to

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BiN H Da n h

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ow do we reflect on Craters? In Ken Burns’ PBS series The National Parks, Carl Pope, past executive director of the Sierra Club said, “My sense is that our special connection with the national parks comes from the fact that we’re a nation of immigrants. We’re a nation of people for whom this is not home, and the national parks are what anchor and root us on this continent. They are the meaning of home for many of us. They’re what it means to be an American, to inhabit this continent. It’s at the end of the immigrant experience, and they’re what takes you and says, ‘Now I am an American.’”

Binh Danh, Bomb at Craters of the Moon #1, 2013, original camera-exposed daguerreotype, courtesy the artist; Haines Gallery, San Francisco; and Lisa Sette Gallery, Phoenix

On July 2, 2013, I ventured into Craters of the Moon National Monument after an invitation from the Sun Valley Center for the Arts.

I had no idea what type of landscape I would encounter there, so I did several online image searches and read up on what I could find on the National Park Service website. What drew me to drive from California to Idaho was curiosity, but nothing can really prepare you for Craters’ unique landscape. A year before, I had mounted a photographic project on Yosemite. I found the Craters landscape quite the opposite. While Yosemite was lush with forests and waterfalls, Craters was barren and dry. The stark contrast forced me to see if I could make interesting pictures of Craters. Similar to Yosemite, I wanted to see what Craters would look like in the daguerreotype medium.

One of the things I found interesting about Craters is its given name, “Craters of the Moon.” Even though the park’s name was officially established in 1924, it was not until 1969—45 years later—that Apollo 11 landed on the moon carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. 1969 was also the height of the Vietnam War. Americans encountered great progress in the space race, but over the following four years, U.S. forces dropped more than a half-million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

Those craters are still visible on the landscape today. Like the Vietnam War, Craters too had a violent past, where “bombs” were thrown out from the fissure.

Some of these bombs weighed well over 100 pounds. I photographed a few that the rangers

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collected as specimens. While holding them, we could imagine the volatile landscape that defined Craters thousands of years ago.

Asking visitors to Craters to contemplate the Vietnam War on their hikes across majestic lava flows might be asking for trouble.

But we have to remember that Craters, being created by nature, was also created by a governmental agency. As we move into a presidential election period, perhaps more than ever, making work about the National Parks in their centennial year is a commitment to democracy. Like the 19th-century photographs of Yosemite that united the country after a brutal Civil War, the art that comes out of the National Parks allow us to reflect, imagine, and re-imagine democracy.

Binh Danh, Limber Pine at Craters of the Moon #1, 2013, original camera-exposed daguerreotype, courtesy the artist; Haines Gallery, San Francisco; and Lisa Sette Gallery, Phoenix

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Jo h n Gra d e

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chanced upon Craters of the Moon for the first time in 2010.

It was spring and a lush bloom of wildflowers layered much of the black cinder landscape. Led into the monument by this delicate beauty, I then discovered lava tube caves under the surface with their compelling forms and intricate surfaces. Five years later, with the idea of making a project inspired by the lava tubes, I skied into the park over a blanket of deep snow. The caves offered shelter from the cold during the night, complementing the shelter they had provided from the heat of the sun during my previous day trip in the spring.

Spur is inspired by my exploration of several lava tube caves.

Their forms are varied with fragmented and torqued surfaces evoking the powerful forces of lava that created them. Many had narrow radiating tentacle-like passages providing just enough space to crawl through. One cave had a wide frozen pond within a high vaulted chamber. Bats roost in many of the caves.

The sculpture is also inspired by the history of the railroad, particularly the spur line that once diverged north from the main tracks into the Wood River Valley. The vertically arching wood ribs of the sculpture reflect the scale of railroad ties, and the intersecting horizontal runs correlate with rails. As one walks through the interior of the sculpture, the charred surfaces inspired by the geology of the caves counter the gaps of open space between them. For me this elicits the movement I associate with a train in open country and the staccato light and shadow that moving boxcars project upon tracks below.

With the undulating profile of the sculpture, I sought to echo the surrounding mountain ranges. My intention with the interior of the sculpture was to connect us to a sense of both what lies mysteriously below the surface of Craters of the Moon and the impermanence of human intervention in the landscape.

John Grade, Spur, in progress, 2016

John Grade, plans for Spur, 2016

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John Grade, Spur (at Craters of the Moon), 2016, Alaskan yellow cedar, courtesy the artist; Davidson Galleries, Seattle; and Cynthia-Reeves, NH and MA

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John Grade, Spur (at Craters of the Moon), 2016, Alaskan yellow cedar, courtesy the artist; Davidson Galleries, Seattle; and Cynthia-Reeves, NH and MA

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Char l es Lin dsay

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INING THE MOON exists as a satellite under the FIELD STATION umbrella of hybrid art installations. These works are designed to synthesize ideas about ecosystems and technology, evolution and AI, and the absurdity of human existence on this spectacularly rare planet in the middle of cosmic nowhere.

I’m exploring concepts linking deep time and broad spectrum consciousness with the portent of off-Earth habitation. If we manage to survive as a species, we are headed back out into the cosmos— that much is clear. Humans will first alight at the moon, then Mars, then who knows. What will we take and what will we leave behind?

What philosophy and dogma, what vices, what weapons, what complex biology, what art? Will we have become so heavily augmented by then so as to barely resemble our current biologic selves? Will Earthlings travel further into space as silicon-borne seeds programmed to terraform planets and re-propagate ourselves? Will Earth be transformed from an azure crucible for extreme biodiversity into a hostile environment? Will life spring anew from the ashes once we’ve departed, much as tiny shimmering wildflowers emerge from the black sands at Craters of the Moon National Monument on years when meteorological conditions perfectly align—when the extremophiles say now is the time?

Charles Lindsay, Mining the Moon, installation view

Since 2010, the SETI Institute has provided a wealth of human and scientific resources to artists through its Artists in Residence Program. As a result, I’ve been researching at the NASA Amesbased Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project, where real plans

are afoot to mine the moon. High-resolution photographic images captured during the Apollo missions aid strategic planning for future lunar infrastructure. I’ve also been recording sounds and visions at Craters of the Moon in Idaho, one of my favorite geographies on Earth, with its lava tubes and lichen, other worldly atmosphere and nuclear research neighbor (Idaho National Laboratory).

Charles Lindsay, Deep Time Audio Extraction Device, 2014/2016, steel, gold, aluminum, ­basalt, lichen, sensors, custom Arduino, microphone, speakers, ­salvaged naval shipping case, ­courtesy the artist

Solitude in fantastic unpeopled terrain offers a rare untethering from our society’s consensual memes and timeframes. In these places we can exist apart from overt manifestations of the human now to immerse in biophilia and the sublime. Of course we can also tap the Web, and technology, to go deeper still, to imagine other interconnected possibilities. We can listen to and learn from what has taken so long, by our scales, to evolve without us. I thank the National Parks, their founders and protectors, for the intelligence to create such opportunities.

This show includes a Portable Wormhole Generator, the Deep Time Audio Extraction Device—probing a piece of basalt—and a composite photograph from the Devil’s Orchard Lava Flow area, where I utilized metalized weather balloons to chart the wind. Those balloons are natural-born comics, or perhaps the humor is in the wind itself.

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Jaso n Mid d l ebroo k

Jason Middlebrook, Inspired by My Trip to Craters, 2016, acrylic on walnut, courtesy the artist; Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin; ­Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago; and Gallery 16, San Francisco; photo: Dev Khalsa

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n my 50th year on the planet, I know one thing about the earth for certain: how lucky we are to have the experience of living here.

Life on this earth is an amazing gift. Every landscape is so different and so incredibly diverse from the next. Most of what humans do is disrupt these wonderful and complex landscapes, but sometimes nature causes the disruption. Craters of Moon is such a place. Nature’s disruptions can result in dramatic, unique landscapes that feel like a time capsule of an event. Craters of the Moon is a disturbed landscape of the highest order. A series of volcanoes in a western landscape have made a surreal environment and have altered the path of the flora and fauna. When the Sun Valley Center for the Arts told me about the project, I was thrilled and couldn’t wait to see the landscape. The stark negative space and the expansive skies were so inspiring, and then to discover the trees, I was captivated. So much of what inspires my art lives at Craters. Time, trees, an endless collage of wildflowers growing up through the cinders, and the animals, all leaving their mark on the remains of a geological event.

The national park system is one of the first attempts by Americans to preserve and protect. Abe Lincoln started it all with Yosemite, and it implies that we do understand the importance of nature. We can only learn from these environments, and the men and women who work at Craters of the Moon do this with great passion. I feel honored to have the opportunity to tread lightly in the park and place my sculpture, a sculpture which is intended to pay homage and draw awareness to the limber pines that have lived in this valley for over 1,000 years.

Jason Middlebrook, Inspired by the Design of Protection, 2016, acrylic on linen, courtesy the artist; Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin; Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago; and Gallery 16, San Francisco; photo: Dev Khalsa

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Jason Middlebrook, Homage to the Limber Pine (1,000 Years of High Winds, Heavy Snows and Countless Gazes), in progress, 2016

Jason Middlebrook, Homage to the Limber Pine (1,000 Years of High Winds, Heavy Snows and Countless Gazes) (at Craters of the Moon), 2016, steel, fiberglass and slate, courtesy the artist; Lora Reynolds Gallery, ­Austin; Monique Meloche ­Gallery, Chicago; and Gallery 16, San ­Francisco; photo: Dev Khalsa

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Cin dy Tow er

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or a decade I’d been living in Saint Louis, painting industrial ruins with evidence of their waste still visible—lead tailings, mining gob and culm piles, and dark, dead ponds. As an artist, I am well acquainted with industrial runoff and Superfund sites.

I accidentally drove past Craters on one of my cross-country trips. It came into view unexpectedly and I drove alongside it for hours. I didn’t know what I was looking at. It was dusk, and a dark substance appeared that took on different textures at different miles.

The moon was full and sometimes this dark material glistened, looked wet or glass-like. At other times it absorbed light like a black hole. It was beautiful yet barren and cataclysmic in scope. Eastward bound and hours later, I exited up through the backside of the grassy Tetons.

The BP Oil Spill began leaking into the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010. Having spent most my life on the coast, I was especially upset about this environmental disaster. Aerial images of the spill ­reminded me of this weird landscape I had seen in Idaho, so I decided to go and paint what I had seen there. I heard that part of the great south rift was a national monument, so I wrote to Ted Stout, Head Interpretive Ranger at Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. Ted gave me permission to come camp and paint a series of oil and tar paintings at Craters. I was Crater’s first Artist in the Park in 2010.

Painting at Craters was exciting. I had a blast shoving paint and tar around with knives to mimic the textures and gestures of the lava flows. This series is gnarly. Winds got so high that canvas often flew away like a kite. Sometimes the canvas would beat like a drum in the wind, causing the brush to impale the painting. (This series has lots of holes.) To avoid the wind, I painted below ground in caves. I also tried painting behind the door of my truck, but the wind blew so hard it broke the hinge. I had to get a welder in Arco to fix it.

Eventually I learned to paint flat on the ground. To keep the wind at bay, I made a circle of large boulders and placed my canvas in the center, like a camp fire. I could easily pick up the boulders— not because of my strength, but because rocks at Crater of the Moon are filled with air bubbles, having been made by magma. At night my tent would blow from side to side, and my beagle, Buster, and I would huddle in the middle. In the morning, we’d both be covered in paint, and so would the walls of the tent. Eventually the tent ripped in half, but Ted Stout lent me another. I stored as many paintings as I could in my truck, but I couldn’t fit them all. Soon I started hiding them inside lava tubes. I found a big lava tube outside the park and stored the entire series there for free for two years!

Cindy Tower, Crater Crotch, 2011, mixed media on canvas, courtesy the artist and Ochi Gallery, Ketchum

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T ed Stou t

Chief of Interpretation and Education at Craters of the Moon National Monument & Preserve

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rtists have played a vital role in America’s National Parks since the 1860s, when famed Hudson River School painters began documenting the majestic landscapes of the west—places destined to become the first national parks. This tradition continues today in many units of the National Park System, including here at Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve.

As a part of our Centennial celebrations, staff at Craters of the Moon collaborated with the Sun Valley Center for the Arts to provide a special art exhibition in two places during the summer of 2016: commissioned sculptures on display at the park, and a multi-artist show at The Center in Ketchum.

Binh Danh, Park Ranger Doug Owen, Park Ranger Lindsay Smith, and Park Ranger Dave Durbin, 2013, archival pigment prints, courtesy the artist; Haines Gallery, San Francisco; and Lisa Sette Gallery, Phoenix

This relationship began in 2010, when artist Cindy Tower contacted the park regarding the possibility of a residency. The Sun Valley Center for the Arts was listed on her impressive resume, so I contacted The Center to ask about their experience working with her. Courtney Gilbert, The Center’s Curator of Visual Arts, quickly responded to my inquiry. During a subsequent conversation, I casually mentioned the upcoming 2016 Centennial of the National Park Service and the possibility of collaboration that this event might offer.

The resulting art exhibition and ongoing partnership with The Center has far exceeded my expectations!

In addition to the current exhibition, staff members from The Center have helped to guide our Artist in Residence program since its inception, assisting park staff in vetting applicants for this popular program. We are pleased that Cindy Tower, our first Artist in Residence, is one of the featured artists in the exhibition. To date, six artists have completed a residency at Craters of the Moon, including our 2016 artist, Rebecca Lowry.

The goal of the National Park Service Centennial—to connect with and create the next generation of park visitors, supporters and advocates—is exemplified by this exciting collaboration between our two organizations. As the National Park Service embarks upon the next hundred years of resource stewardship, we look forward to continuing our partnership with the Sun Valley Center for the Arts.

Jason Middlebrook, Homage to the Limber Pine (1,000 Years of High Winds, Heavy Snows and Countless Gazes) (at Craters of the Moon), 2016, steel, fiberglass and slate, courtesy the artist; Lora Reynolds Gallery, ­Austin; Monique Meloche ­Gallery, Chicago; and Gallery 16, San ­Francisco; photo: Dev Khalsa

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Boar d & Staff

A bou t Th e Cen t er

Sun Valley Center for the Arts Board of Directors Tim Wolff, President Lisa Stelck, Vice President David Hanks, Treasurer Tod Hamachek, Secretary Tim Black Robert DeGennaro Sandy Figge Charlie Goodyear David Holmes Barbara Lehman Judith Levy Jeanne Meyers Britt Palmedo Richard Perlman Trina Peters Katherine Rixon Sarah Woodward

Staff Christine Davis-Jeffers, Executive Director Kristin Poole, Artistic Director Brooke Baker, Finance/Database Assistant Kristine Bretall, Director of Performing Arts Holly Bornemeier, Marketing Manager Kelly Eisenbarger, Administrative Coordinator Katelyn Foley, Director of Education & ­Humanities Courtney Gilbert, Curator of Visual Arts John Glenn, Core Company Artist David Janeski, Database Administrator Joe Lavigne, Technical Director Callan Miranda, Special Events Manager/Wine Auction Director Cole Newcomb, Development/Marketing Associate K.O. Ogilvie, Production Stage Manager Kris Olenick, Volunteer Coordinator/Company of Fools Administrative Assistant Danica Robrahn, Education Assistant Denise Simone, Core Company Artist Sarah Stavros, Education Coordinator/Arts & Crafts Festival Director Esther Williams, Events and Hospitality Assistant

Advisory Council Kathy Abelson Ruth Bloom Gary Borman Michael Engl Marybeth Flower Philip Isles Glenn Janss Carol Nie Van Gordon Sauter Roselyne Swig Patricia Wilson Jeri Wolfson

The Center’s mission is to enrich our ­ community through transformative arts and educational ­experiences.

We fulfill our purpose by offering high quality programming in a variety of disciplines. Often theatre, music, the visual arts and ­humanities come together to explore a theme or Big Idea that is relevant to our time. This unique, multidisciplinary approach to arts education allows us to present some of the world’s most interesting artists, musicians, authors, filmmakers, authors and playwrights.

With equal emphasis on the visual arts, the performing arts and the humanities, The Center has made a commitment to exploring issues from the perspectives of each of these three disciplines.

We care deeply about arts education and are committed to partnering with local schools to bring artists and authors, musicians and playwrights into the schools. The Center’s outreach programs supplement the school curriculum with in-school classes and workshops, visiting artists, school tours of our exhibitions and professional development opportunities for area educators.

Charles Lindsay, Weather Balloon Experiment @ Devil’s Orchard, 2015–16, composite photograph, courtesy the artist

Sun Valley Center for the Arts

sunvalleycenter.org • 208.726.9491 191 Fifth Street East, Ketchum, Idaho 83340 P.O. Box 656, Sun Valley, ID 83353