‘A River Runs Through’ is a 6 layer reductive screen print that features a view overlooking the Tetons and a small portion of the Snake River, both frozen over amidst the depths of a winter cold spell the town of Jackson had not seen in years. Everyone I encountered asked if I was holding up out in the weather as I walked from shop to shop. I informed them it was sub zero before windchill in Minnesota and had been for weeks to which they responded, “You probably brought this with you then.” And maybe I had! But I left with a new found love for a mountain range I had the pleasure of meeting for the first, and only, time in my life (so far). 
 
This particular perspective of the landscape is a nod to Ansel Adam’s own famous photograph ‘The Tetons and the Snake River’ which was a part of ‘The Mural Project’ commissioned by the US Department of the Interior. The project set out to celebrate the US’s National Park system through murals that worked in concert to the preexisting paintings on the walls of their headquarters. Ansel Adams’ work was sought out by the Interior’s secretary Harold Ickes who had been impressed by his artistic practice, appointing Adams for “the maximum annual salary then allowed for any position not subject to congressional approval: twenty-two dollars and twenty-two cents a day for no more than 180 days' work a year, plus five dollars per diem expense.” In 1942 after two years of travel, documentation, and 225 gelatin silver prints developed and submitted the project was halted during World War II and never resumed. 
 
All of this to say, I think it’s really special that over 80 years later, I’m able to add my own perspective to the conversation regarding the importance of preservation of these natural landscapes that continue to touch the hearts of those lucky enough to encounter them. My contribution comes in the form of documentation through print and by recounting the way I felt both so small and interconnected to land that has existed in many forms before me and will hopefully outlast my existence for a millennia to come. When encountering all of these mural worthy views in the park, each stop along the way provided a placard detailing the park's history. One of my favorites stated the following: 
 
“Grand Tetons National Park is part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem-one of the largest, nearly intact temperate-zone ecosystems in the world. Ecosystem preservation requires collaboration among land management agencies, private citizens, and partners who all contribute to conservation efforts.”
 
Temperate ecosystems play a major role in absorbing atmospheric greenhouse gases, which are rapidly increasing as politicians strip back regulations, continuing to move us further away from the goal of net zero that was set to neutralize our output of carbon emissions with what the Earth’s carbon sinks are capable of absorbing by 2050 to prevent climate catastrophe. We’ve endured many periods within our industrialized history where humans have prioritized profit over preservation. Under the current administration, we are seeing this concept rapidly expedited as politicians eagerly hand over protected lands to line the pockets of billionaires. Undoing years of historic preservation and defunding our National Parks continues to put humanity at risk when natural resources are polluted, carbon sinks are destroyed, and land that no one has the right to own suddenly becomes inaccessible-all for dollars we ourselves will never see. 
 
I consider my prints to be a passport stamp of sorts. A documentation point of where I am in my own life and how I’m choosing to view the world around me. What’s important to me in that moment, what stands out when I’m there with a camera in hand, and what of those thoughts makes it into the final print. I know my prints are usually based in aesthetics, and maybe at first glance convey no more than the documentation of my physical perspective. But I hope in viewing these works, you’re considering your own memories, your own passage of time, and how all of these choices made by you and for you affect our present selves, and more importantly our future selves, and the futures of those to come long after we are gone. I hope these layers hold the weight of those decisions and speak the visual language of the words that cannot be said by the landscapes themselves.