High Country News Article

Whoo-hoo! Ben and I have been asked to work on an upcoming New Orleans atlas being shepherded by Rebecca Solnit's friend Rebecca Snedecker. We're already plotting roadtrips.


High Country News magazine has a fabulous article about the Laramie atlas, complete with images of seven maps and sound bites of the writers describing their concepts.

But you have to visit the exhibit to see Meghan Cochran's mordantly funny 3D  responses to Kristen Gunther's map of taxidermy and guns. Kristen's map put us on the trail of the jackalope on our last day in Laramie. More later.

http://themechanicsdaughter.blogspot.com/search/label/Taxidermy

Laramie: A Gem City Atlas - continued

" Laramie: A Gem City Atlas" is a project of  the University of Wyoming's MFA program in creative writing. The project was launched by Rebecca Solnit's  four-week visit to Alyson Hagy’s graduate seminar.


Inspired by the visionary author of "Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas."  The student writers pondered various facets of Laramie, and teamed up with local artists and with "Infinite City" cartographers Ben Pease and Shizue Seigel. The result is an intriguing set of maps and artwork that delve into the multiplicity of views that layer any location. 

What is the third largest city in the most thinly populated state in the continental U.S.? A Wild West town, a college town, a railroad town, the county seat? These maps ponder the effects of global warming and cold war, the costs of healthcare, the uses of guns, the history of violence and traces of the East in the West.

Cold War, Warm Planet

To accompany an essay by Kathryn Flagg. Illustration by Kelsey Giroux, graphic production by Shizue Seigel, cartography by Ben Pease,

Writer's statement: This map juxtaposes the extent of beetle kill in southeastern Wyoming's forests with the locations of decommissioned nuclear missile silos. One illustrates the landscape of Cold War-era policies that brought nuclear warheads to Wyoming, and continues to fund silos still in operation; the other examines the bark beetle epidemic that is ravaged Wyoming's forests, spurred on in part by a warming climate.

In examining these spaces, I hope to answer several questions: What is a landscape of anticipated disaster? What feelings do these landscapes provoke in us? And also, what nuances do we overlook when we assign mark a landscape as belonging to "disaster"?

Birds, Birding and Birders

To accompany an essay by Tshering Dema. Art by Gabrielle Reeves.

Writer's statement: Laramie with its vast expanse of sagebrush, aspens, conifers, and riparian areas is a haven to a variety of birds. The water fowl—ducks, geese, teals, shovelers, pintails, swans, grebes, herons, pelicans, egrets, terns, shore birds, and gulls—swim and wade in the ponds, rivers, and lakes of Laramie. Other birds like falcons, hawks, and eagles soar in Laramie’s skies looking for food on the ground from their high vantage point. Male Sage grouse strut and dance in their leks, in an open field surrounded by sage brush, to impress the females. Woodpeckers, with their chisel shaped bills, drill the soft cottonwood trees and dead Aspen to find a nesting place. From a distance, mourning dove calls “coo-OO-oo,” as I walk on Garfield Street heading downtown. Songs and calls of other songbirds accompany me as I walk from my apartment at twenty-second street to get to the University. Outside the Wyoming Hall, a Brown Creeper clings to the bark of the conifer, using its stiff tail for extra support as it probes the bark with its long decurved bill looking for insects while House sparrows greet everyone at the entrance of the library.

Each of these birds symbolizes different things to me. Some have cultural significance in my life while I associate others with different places and events. By birding, I find a way to relate to this foreign culture: Through these common creatures, I find beauty in our cultural differences. The strange yet wonderful culture of birders and birding is fascinating, but also grounded in a curiosity and passion with the natural world to which I can easily relate.

Birds, Birding and Birders

Concept by Tshering Dema. Art by Elizabeth Cochran

An Apple a Day

To accompany an essay by Alyson Hagy. Illustration by Valerie Pexton, cartography by Ben Pease, design and production by Shizue Seigel.

Wrtier's statement: Laramie is a small Western city situated on the high, dry plains. It is very hard to nurture certain things in Laramie. Humans didn't even try to live here year round until the Union Pacific Railroad came through in 1868.

What is precious in Laramie? Many things are. But medical care (particularly primary care) and fruit trees are among the most prized--and difficult--things that can be sustained. So I have created a map that begins to map apple/crabapple trees and important healthcare sites in town.

I want people to think more carefully about the complexities of healthcare access in Wyoming (i.e. How many of us depend on government support. How our population is aging. How expensive insurance can be in a rural state.) and compare it, perhaps, to the rare care that fruit trees require to survive in this tricky environment.

Quarries and Climbing

Concept and research by Paula Ann Wright, drawings by Paul Wright and alex borgen, cartography by Ben Pease, design by Shizue Seigel.

Writer's statement: The university campus began with the construction of Old Main, completed in 1897, and is formed of rock quarried from just outside Laramie city proper. This type of stone, a rose-colored sandstone, also makes up several of the other buildings around campus and in the downtown district, and is said to reflect the character of the greater Laramie landscape, including the “mass” and “ragged cliffs.” "Quarries and Climbing" details the local quarries and some of the buildings they were used to construct around campus and juxtaposes paths into the vertical with paths below the Earth's surface. 

Geography of Strays: A 2010 Census

To accompany an essay by Mary Katherine McCarney, cartography by Ben Pease, Design by Shizue Seigel.

Writer's statement: Laramie Animal Control keeps an arrival log that includes an entry for every animal in residence. Each page features 32 one-line entries for 32 incoming animals. The 2010 log is 40 pages long. The arrival log is potentially an actionable dataset and certainly an intriguing one. Pattern recognition is the first step in solving many problems, as perhaps it will be for Laramie’s unwanted animals. Within the raw numbers (the totals and divisions) and the obvious statistics (the averages and trends), patterns emerge, questions about Laramie’s pet population are asked and answered. A branch of mathematics—combinatorics—studies the structures that emerge through the act of counting. The best known application of combinatorics is a census, a catalogue of populations, their attributes and geographies. The geography of strays, a census of at-risk animals, is a proxy for understanding how a city struggles and prospers.

Animal Control, Laramie, WY

Art by Courtney Googe to accompany Mary Katherine McCarney's essay, "Geography of Strays: A 2010 Census"

Ghosts and Cottonwoods

Artistic response by Tessa Dallarosam who writes: My piece is a response to Tasha's concept to map cottonwoods and ghost stories in the Laramie area. What I liked most about Tasha's concept is how many ghost stories remain in the town of Laramie, despite the fact that the current residents may be unaware of the supposed haunting of their home. These tales continue to be told, long after a building has been moved or demolished. The rings within a cottonwood's trunk seem symbolic of these stories, both hidden and housed. Just as a story changes over time, expanding in embellishment and contracting as memory fades, so too do the wispy lines within a cottonwood tree take on new shapes with the development of the expanding spiral.

Wild Wild East

To accompany "Wild Wild East: Finding Asia in the West (An Essay in Parts)," by LuLing Osofsky, design by Pauiius Staniunas, cartography by Shizue Seigel.

Writer's statement: This map aims to highlight the surprising prevalence and diversity of Asian traces found in Laramie. Like many college towns in America, Laramie’s downtown is dotted with a handful of Asian restaurants, as well as studios for yoga, martial arts, and acupuncture. But setting it apart, Laramie sits in the high plains. The bucking bronco is ubiquitous; the town’s old lore teems with lawlessness. Truth or myth, or mixed, it’s the Wild West. Yet, you may now eat Chinese take-out and curry and sushi, practice yoga, drive a Japanese car, drink chai, take an Asian religions class at the University, get your eyebrows threaded, and so on. Thus this map aims to capture the presence of Asia, as well as the unique and ironic interplay between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ influences, asking us to rethink just how much of Asia has been integrated into Laramie and our daily lives.

 怀俄明 (Wyoming)

To accompany an essay by LuLing Osofsky. Concept by LuLing Osofsky, artwork by Tristan Ahtone.

Writer's statement: Like the American flag, or the Wyoming flag, Chairman Mao too is an icon. He is a symbol of China’s power, perhaps merciless and totalitarian. Mainstream America has a fascinating and dialectical relationship with the East: the simultaneous fear of its rising strength and domination, and an intrigue, or at least a convenient commodification, of its culture. But what does it mean when 70% of goods in Walmart are made in China? How should it feel to buy a tshirt with the words “American Patriot” sewn across it, made in Bangladesh? Is that irony worrisome, or just funny?
When we raise the flag, and pledge allegiance to it, what are we hailing, swearing loyalty to? In a largely material world, where we spend our money is where we, intentionally or not, proclaim our allegiance. The state flag represents the buffalo as “once the monarch of the plains.” Who are the new monarchs of our lives, our money and our time?

 Female Trouble

To accompany an essay by Kelly Ann Herbison. Illustration by Jessica Tanguay, cartography by Shizue Seigel.
Writer's statement: The 2010 census revealed that Wyoming had the largest gender wage gap in the country, with women making an average 64 cents to the dollar. The national average is 77 cents. I found this to be peculiar considering that Wyoming is nicknamed "The Equality State" for the great strides the legislature took towards women's rights in the 1870's, long before any other state in the union. The first woman to vote in the US did so in Laramie. One of the largest wage gaps is in the health care sector, partly due to the fact that more women hold jobs as nurses and more men hold jobs as doctors. As an entomologist, this situation reminded me of the poor reputation of a group of all female insects, the ants (there are males, but they're only around long enough to mate). Both ants and nurses serve roles as caretakers in Laramie and both are under-appreciated for the important roles they play for the community of Laramie. This map aims to reveal the abundance of undervalued female work that transcends species boundaries.

Racks and Rifles

To accompany "A Scavenger Hunt," an essay by Kristen Elizabeth Gunther. Design by Shizue Seigel.

Writer's statement: In this map, I highlight public locations featuring taxidermy, as well as locations in which guns are shot, stored, or sold. Laramie occupies a tenuous place on the plains -- an established settlement on land that, in many ways, has always demanded migration, transience. This map is meant to raise questions about our relationship and interactions with the environment, particularly those related to human-wildlife and predator-prey interactions.

Priscilla

Meghan Rowswell’s artistic response to Racks and Rifles map

Saloons and Salons

To accompany an essay Jacklynn Pham. Art and design and Jacklynn Pham, cartography by Shizue Seigel.

Writer's statement: This map of the saloons in and salons directly subverts the narrative of Laramie as a wild, western town. By showing that Laramie has twenty 23 bars (includes bars, pubs, and lounges), but 34 beauty salons (includes hair, nails, and tanning services) it contrasts the idea of a hearty, rough-and-tumble, beer-drinking, knee-slapping, horse-riding, truck-driving, “forever west” Laramie with Laramie the modern, domesticated, commercial, and vain. It confronts viewers with a comparison in order to tell a different story, Laramie: The Wild and the Fabulous.

Velocity, Ferocity, and the Gem City

To accompany an essay by Chavawn Kelley. Artwork by Travis ivey, design and production by Shizue Seigel.

Writer's statement: If you wanted to know Laramie, you could start with the bullet hole in the mirror at the Buckhorn Bar. Overlaid on a map of the city, its dominant vertical crack aligns with the Union Pacific Railroad and its curved horizontal crack takes in the sweep of Interstate 80, situating the point of impact at approximately First and Garfield. The circumference of the bullet hole takes in the locations of a triple hanging, the former Fireside Lounge, and the tourism board promoting Laramie’s outlaw past. The Buckhorn Bar also makes it into this ballistic eye we ask to be the mirror of Laramie’s soul.

Velocity, Ferocity, and the Gem City

Key map. Concept and resarch by Chavawn Kelley. Art by Travis ivey, design and production by Shizue Seigel

 Landmarks, Landscape

To accompany an essay by Katie B. Booms. Illustration by Katie Booms, cartography by Shizue Seigel.

Writer's statement: Here in Wyoming, we're surrounded by these famously beautiful mountains, and the mountains, openness, and altitude seem integral to Laramie's character. But it's also easy to lose sight of the mountains if you stay within the city, and it seems strange to define a place based on the views or access it offers of somewhere else. This map is attempts to show Laramie in the context of its environment, mapping both spots where you can see the mountains and what you might use as landmarks when the mountains aren't in view.

Many Homes: Five American Indians Map Wyoming

Concept by Kristen Eixabeth Gunther. Photography by Kristen Gunther and Shizue Seigel, cartography and design by by Shizue Seigel.

This is the map of Wyoming generated by five American Indian students when asked to pinpoint the locations they believed were most important in the state. Four of the students are originally from the Wind River Reservation, while a fifth hails from the Crow Reservation in Montana. The lines on the map represent the students' travel routes to their various homes, both past and present, starting from their current homes in Laramie.

Cartographic Collapse I

To accompany an essay by Irina Zhorov, design by Tristan Ahtone. 

Writer's Statement: I use familiar and personal maps to drive a more theoretical exploration of maps and the purposes they serve. I hope to encourage both viewers of the maps as well as readers of the essay to (re)consider the assumed objectivity of maps and the reasons behind a particular map's creation and existence.

Cartographic Collapse II

By Irina Zhorov & Tristan Ahtone, to accompany an essay by Irina Zhorov.

Laramie: A Gem City Atlas - in progress

My partner, Ben Pease, and I had the privilege of being the cartographers on Rebecca Solnit’s Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, a brilliant collection of essays and maps that explore the layers of meaning that cohabit a location. Rebecca was invited to  the University of Wyoming as an Eminent Writer in Residence. She inspired Alyson Hagy’s graduate creative writing students to create Laramie: A Gem City Atlas. Ben and I were invited along to help the students create maps to go with their essays.

The writers choose topics and researched locations that we placed onto a base map of Laramie. They then looked for artists to embellish their maps. To give the students some notion of possibilities, I created some responses to their data. The writers are working with artists now to create responses of their own. We’re working with them long distance to help them marry art with maps, and I'm looking forward to the exhibition of Laramie: A Gem City Atlas, opening May 2 at the University of Wyoming Art Museum.

Tasha LeClair’s idea was to combine locations of ghost sightings with Laramie's ubiquitious cottonwood trees.

And Luling Osofsky searches for signs of Asia in the Wild West.

. 

Bridging through the Arts: Transracial Community Building

I’m honored to have four pieces in a show at the UC Santa Barbara Multicultural Center on transracial community building sponsored by the Chicano/Chicana Studies Department, April-June 2011. These are all older pieces but the issues they touch upon remain challenges today.

Burden of Imagination  (24"x24" oil).The blank canvas is both gift and responsibility. My art resists escaping into abstraction or conceptual dryness. Instead, it seeks to connect, inspire and heal by embracing duality while affirming underlying unity. The images arcing down from top right are the mother of Emmett Till (the fourteen-year-old boy who was lynched in 1955 for whistling at a white woman), an Appalachian storyteller and a 100-year-old ex-slave. On the far left, a musician plays Peruvian pan flutes, a nun dances as a form of charismatic prayer near our biological relatives, a parrot, an ape, then a native of the endangered Amazon rain forest, and at the bottom, Hells Angel, and the wicked witch of the west. 

The Baby Shoes (etching, 20” x 16”). In 1977 an international boycott against Nestlé products was modiblized by largely white, middle-class mothers in support of poor mothers of color in the developing world. The campaign was prompted by concern that the company’s promotion of breast milk substitutes (infant formula) contributes to the death and suffering of babies in impoverished nations around the world.

Powdered breast-milk substitutes must be mixed with water, which is often contaminated in poor countries, leading to disease in vulnerable infants. Impoverished mothers often use less formula powder than is necessary, in order to make a container of formula last longer, resulting in inadequate nutrition. They do not have access to clean water or fuel to boil water for sterilizing bottles. In contrast, Breastfeeding transmit natural immunities and strengthens bonds between mother and child, UNICEF estimates that a non-breastfed child living in disease-ridden and unhygienic conditions is between six and 25 times more likely to die of diarrhea and four times more likely to die of pneumonia than a breastfed child.

The Whitebread Conspiracy (etching, 20” x 16” framed). Since everyone is unique and no one is normal, the pursuit of “normalcy” is a questionable source of self-worth. But consumerism lures us into spending too much time and money choosing the right apparel, anti-perspirants, anti-dandruff shampoo and anti-depressants to help us “fit in.”

“Whitebread” Urban Dictionary definition #1: “... implies profound cultural naïvete, blind consumerism, and an unquestioning “follower” mindset.... Though whitebread individuals are usually white, the term is not necessarily racial in meaning - the implication lies more with the blandness, predictability, and banality of plain white bread. Accordingly, ‘wonderbread’ is often used as a synonym.”

Definition #3: “someone who is not white, for example a black person, who acts incredibly white.”

Blood on Your Face (etching, 18 x18 framed). War will only end when we learn to bridge divisions of race, religion and nationality.

Imperatrix Mundi

My piece Imperatrix Mundi has been accepted for the Asian American Women Artists' Association show, A Place of Her Own, opening in San Francisco in early May. It's an homage to my grandmother, who raised ten children while operating a workingman's hotel in Stockton, CA. She was even more diminutive than Napoleon, but she ruled her world through love and compassion, not a quest for power.

Right now the work exists only as a photocollage thumbnail. I have been asked to paint it as a large canvas, 3 x 5 feet. I agreed, thinking it would be wonderful to put paint to canvas again after a long foray into other media. I've bought the canvas and stretcher bars and ordered the frame. Now all I have to do is find the time to paint.

Grandma’s House 

My dad’s mom runs a hotel south of the canal, a cheap SRO in the middle of the block 

between the pool hall and the Jesus mission where the open door reveals 

rows of stoic men slumped in folding chairs pretending to listen to the preacher 

and waiting, waiting for a chance to sleep on one of the iron beds 

lined up like soldiers with white sheets pulled drum tight.

My mom parks our two-tone blue Pontiac outside the liquor store 

stocked with golden pints of brandy, port and muscatel.

She checks her lipstick in the rearview mirror. She makes sure her stocking seams are straight

and my ponytail is so tight it makes my scalp ache.

She makes a beeline down the vomit-splattered street to Grandma’s hotel

past the broken men in broken shoes, in pants tied up with rope.

She does not look at the Army-green trouser leg neatly folded,safety-pinned, and dangling slackly where a limb should be, 

She’s blind to the gap-toothed, yellowing ivories, the grey-stubble lined with spittle, 

the passed-out drunk lying twisted on the ground just as he fell, wreathed in the sweet, stale fumes of cheap wine.

“Single Rooms • Daily • Weekly • Monthly” reads the sign on Baachan’s hotel.

The door is checked and chalky with age and the entrance reeks of piss. 

"Don't touch the walls," my mother says.  She gathers her skirts tightly

so they will not brush the stamped metal wainscotting 

painted institutional green and stained with grease from many hands. 

Baachan is waiting for us at the top of the stairs, at the end of a long hall lined with bleak single rooms. 

A tiny woman, skinny as the broom she wields, as crooked as the teeth jammed any which way into her mouth.

“Yokatta, ne!” she says when she sees us. “Isn’t it good.” “Namu Amida Butsu, I pay homage to the Buddha.” And as she beams, it IS good. All of it— the ten kids she raised in this skid-row hotel,

the drunks, the deadbeats, the bums who call her “Mama” and eat her free Sunday chili,

From drunks to nervous mothers to little girl with eyes like cameras.

Nothing escapes the embrace of Baachan’s compassionate view.

Going to see her is like visiting the sun.

Published in Empty Shoes: Poems on the Hungry and Homeless (Popcorn Press 2009)

The Great Divide: Thoughts and Prayers

An idealistic young white man was murdered in my quiet, middle-class neighborhood in the Richmond District. It was a shocking event in a largely white and Aisan American neighborhood that averages one murder a year. Privilege in my neighborhood means that my 15-year-old Asian/European American son was brought home by the police with a friendly warning when he and his friends were caught lurking in a wealthy neighborhood with sharpened screwdrivers. (They were smoking pot, not planning to break into cars.) Meanwhile, across town in the projects, 14-year-old African American Anthony was sentenced to Juvenile Hall for stealing food for his siblings. When he did it again a couple of years later, he ended up in prison. In contrast, when my son took his grandfather’s pocketknife to school (because he was afraid of Asian gangs, he said), a teacher confiscated the weapon and contacted me instead of handing the weapon and my son over to the principal for automatic expulson.

We don't know how privileged we are unless we understand how bad things can be others.

Seventy-seven people attached written thoughts and prayers to the Great Divide installation at SOMArts. Here's what they wrote:

[heart] unconditionally

Everyone has face and a story. Respect, dignity and justice for all.

We must change minds before we can change society. Open your third eye.

God’s love and goodness are all around. Thank you, Love, Lanaya

Do not let fear stop you from achieving your potential

Bottom line: Love!

RIP RIP peace honor

Peace

Do it while you can! I'm sorry, please forgive me, I love you. Thank you. CA

Co-exist [smiley face]

When your [heart] breaks it heals stronger than before [heart]

We are the bike lane

[heart] somos el

Loves bikes  Let "it" be  Live with Passion  Love everyone like your mother

I pray for hopeful futures for all our children.

I'm so sad for kenneth tims

Caring and sharing by Kim F.

Peace and understanding

Look where you turn!

Less driving+less pollution   Bike/walk more

Hi!!!

Think before you shoot

Be aware! Stay Alive!

Love as you want to be loved!

I ride everyday. They've tried to steal my bike, but I got it back every time. I realize I'm one of the lucky ones. My heart goes out to stories like this one.

God’s love and goodness are all around. Thank you Father Mother Love [peace symbol]

Always whare a helmet

Peace, Blessings, Love

“Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable, and everlasting” —Bahá u’ llah

Everyone is created =

“All will end soon enough.” — Boss

Get Busy! Things won’t change without you!

More Safe Bike Lanes

God is your father

May our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren be safe in the street [heart]   Peace to your hearts.

R.I.P

God bless

Every life is precious

The heart is wheeled.  Pedal.

Peace and blessings [heart]

Peace [heart]

Let go of the bicycle.

R.I.P Kirk buddy. Your pici rides on…. [heart]  C

Rest into the people in the accidents!!

Live in Peace

Live in God

Nice work!

Remember the little things

Saimon Mock 2010 We all miss you

Rest in Peace, Jennifer. Rest in Peace, Daniela

Be Bold

Peace will prevail

Rest in Peace

=

Remember the little things

Prayers for peaceful conversions rather than deadly discourse

Rest in Peace, Kun Uttai and Nong Aaam. Thank you for the roles you played in my narrative.

Ride on Mi Amiga

LL’L never forget you. Tyrone Williams RIP 2009

patience. compassion, consideration. forgiveness. obey traffic laws. slow down. get off cell phone when driving.

Get you some!! — Sarina L

Dame Abrazos!

World Peace

Dream of Me

The dead speak to me through a veil of mists. If you’re quiet, you can hear them too. Blessed Love

May you Rest in peace and in honor

I [heart] big time rush — Sebastian AKA Logan

Your wheels are wings [bike]

Respect for Everything

Never forget love it is the most [heart] important thing [heart] you have

They shouldn’t have died. They died for no reason. They died because of some gun-carrying lunatics. — Naomi C

Love will always follow

Motha Earth Rest Calmly. Love is on its way —Honor Respect Love Prevails

God’s blessings to the homeless! May they find freedom, sheter, and love. Amen.

Baba, Keith and Daddy you are missed

For Gustavo and Leonard both killed by the police. May we remake the world w/your laughter

Peace come to all people

-----

The Great Divide: Dia de los Muertos

The Great Divide: Streetside Memorials. (8 w x 6 h x 1 d feet, Installation on chain link fence: photography, bicycle, candles, flowers, raffia, paper tags for public comment). Exhibited at Dia de los Muertos, SOMArt  Cultural Center, San Francisco, Oct-Nov 2010.

Photographs of streetside memorials for two young men, one black, one white, killed on opposite sides of the Bay in very different neighborhoods for very different reasons. Every day we walk past stories peeping like new grass and gum wrappers through layers of leaf litter—implications of race and class, public and private grief, intentions and consequences, growth and loss and the inevitable passage of time.