WATERSHED
Great Salt Lake has captivated me since I first learned about it for a fourth grade research report. I first saw her waves crashing and spraying up and over and the interstate years later in 1986, and this Great Lake is weaved through my life ever since.
My passionate engagement advocating for Great Salt Lake and the health of our watershed began in 2013 and has risen in a feverish pace since 2019 as the declining lake levels have become a clear and present danger.
FRIENDS of Great Salt Lake
The mission of FRIENDS is to preserve and protect the Great Salt Lake ecosystem and to increase public awareness and appreciation of the Lake through education, research, advocacy and the arts. FRIENDS has been advocating for the Lake since 1994 and I am extraordinarily grateful to serve on the Board of Directors since 2019.
Moments at the Great Salt Lake
I first learned about the Great Salt Lake from a homework assignment, an elementary school research project on a capital city. From the small mountain town of Big Bear Lake, California, I mailed inquiries to the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce and the Tourist and Visitors Bureau asking if they would send me information to use in my report. A couple of weeks later I received all the material a fourth grader could ever want about Utah and Salt Lake City. As a ski racer, I was particularly interested in the Greatest Snow on Earth. Several years later, I found myself driving towards the Utah mountains with my dad to attend a ski academy. It was 1986 and as we approached Salt Lake City, eastbound on I-80, the waves from the Great Salt Lake crashed and sprayed up and over the interstate.
I discovered the lake for myself years later during my undergraduate studies at the University of Utah. I was amazed with the peace and solitude I could find along its shores and each visit was sure to present a novel experience and some kind of adventure.
Years later, during a time of overwhelming personal challenges, I remembered that Great Salt Lake had offered me a place and space to ponder and reflect on life’s greatest questions; a profoundly present and open expanse, gently undulating, where time slows and spaces flow into one another. It’s challenging to identify where the sky meets the lake and where the ground meets the water. It’s disorienting in the most perfect way, but also reorienting - prompting presence, prompting reflection, prompting reconciliation with the moment, and healing.
I have spent minutes, hours, and days on the lake and its shores. Episodic micro adventures - paddle boarding in a winter storm and getting lost in the dense fog, but with a compass to point the direction home. Circumnavigating the lake on a multi-day trip, including the surprise demands of three flat tires near the Lucin Cutoff and exploring the Sun Tunnels during the summer and winter solstices. Of course, I never understood the Spiral Jetty in art history class, but it is now proven to me that experience is the best teacher. I’ve enjoyed Introducing my family to back floats in the salty water buoyant enough to take a nap, running and biking around Antelope Island, sinking in the mud up to my hips, the many walks to the shore with my family, my friends, and our dogs, all creating so many cherished moments.
I love this Great Salt Lake. It is inextricably connected to my history, my coming of age. It is an indelible part of my character, my human being, and I am extraordinarily grateful to be able to share a few images with you, representations of my experiences on each shore from every season and I hope the light that I’ve captured reveals some of the beauty that I’ve found.
I was honored to have my images published throughout the Great Salt Lake Strike Team 2023 Great Salt Lake Policy Assessment
Speaking Engagements
Greater Avenues Community Council - September 6, 2023
Jung Society of Utah: Frames of Reference: Stories of Individuation Captured in Light - April 21, 2023
Art Exhibits
Utah State Capitol Art Show: 3rd Floor - January 2023 - January 2024
Sugar House Art Walk: Eightline Real Estate - August 2022
Alfred Lambourne Arts Program: Sorenson Community Campus -September 2019
Utah Watercolor Society: Utah Division of Arts and Museums Traveling Exhibit - 2018
Jung Society of Utah: Frames of Reference: Stories of Individuation Captured in Light - April 21, 2023