Samuel Brainard (He/they)Grade 11, San Francisco University High SchoolWind RiverInk on Paper, Leaf Pigment6" x 10"2021Not for SaleThe Wind River series was created over a month-long backpacking trip in the Wind River Range, Wyoming, after reaching the site for the day, tents were quickly erected, mats inflated, provisional kitchens arranged, and a bear fence pitched. Delegations completed, a lonely boulder, always by, or in, a crystalline stream, served as a platform to sit on. A camp chair relaxed posture, while two Nalgene bottles collected water, one Pilot Precise V5 pen marked the pages of a muddied canvas-bound notebook. After baptizing a torn page in the stream, an automatist stroke marked the outline of a shape either present in the landscape or inspired by it. Mountains, ridges of snow, ripples of water, and alpine shrubbery formed alongside amorphic creatures that resembled biological forms, referencing creationism. The saturated page leeched ink towards the rock, so, by turning the page, dousing it in water, and allowing the thin air to strip moisture, leeching was controlled, and precision was removed or added. “Spiritual Unfoldment,” as imagist Yoakum put it, was taking place in the generative images of the Wind River.
