This ongoing series of prints and monoprints initially started with a small set of copper plates produced at an electrolytic-etching workshop I took at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in 2023. The concept behind them was inspired by that summer’s family roadtrip that delivered me to the workshop in Snowmass: as our route occasionally took us along and across the Colorado River, the news stories about ongoing water rights negotiations took on new significance for me. The result was a collection of imagery that reflects the Rocky Mountains (home to the river’s headwaters), the interesting geometry of the official Colorado River Basin boundaries, and the agriculture the diverted river waters support in faraway lands like California’s Imperial Valley.
The recurring imagery (the grazing cow, the aqueduct winding its way through the field, and the map of the river and basin) are etched copper plates; the various overlays of the grain pattern are cut from a relief print I made, then applied as chine collé.
