Artist Statement –
Tory Read
The South Platte is a small river, which in modern
times has become an elaborately controlled plumbing
system for the city of Denver. Historically, the river’s
form oscillated from a shallow, mile-wide waterway
in the spring months to a parched, meager trickle
in the hot days of August. Like all moving water,
the South Platte attracts humans, yet we cannot tolerate
such flux. After snowmelt floods repeatedly washed
away city structures located in the flood plain, 20th-century
humans began to exert a heavier hand in managing and
taming the unpredictable river.
In South Platte Studies, begun in February of this
year, I explore the human presence along the river
as it runs through Denver, including the ways in which
we restrain and direct, use and reuse this moving
water. The South Platte bears witness to both our
ingenuity and our disregard. For years, the river
was our dumping ground. Today, we aggressively work
to re-vegetate its banks. We strive to re-create a
verdant state of nature that in fact never existed
along a river that, left to its own devices, would
continue to ebb and flow with the seasons.
Artist Statement – Debra Goldman
Sutra means a teaching, a scripture or doctrine.
I see the river as a story of our relationship to
both our ever-shifting planet and to the human spirit.
Everything is in flux, everything always in a state
of change.
I have chosen the Platte River because of its proximity
to the place that I live and for its historical and
ecological significance in this place. It could be
any river, the river being a metaphor for all things
impermanent. The sound of a river becoming a lamentation,
constantly moving it can be likened to a prayer or
chant. At this time of instability and dis-ease in
the world I turned to the river and it's ability to
withstand and adapt as we inhabit and re-direct its
course. There is a great beauty in its constancy.
Like an endless stream of consciousness. Water and
breath forever changing, forever falling away.
Two views of the same river, language weaving the
images together making them one.
All the images are composed of two photographs hinged
together with linen tape. The surface has been stained
with waters collected from the river and an ink made
from walnuts. The text is written in white India ink.
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