Warren MacKenzie Advancement Award Report
2025
Images of landscape and research center were included in Winiski’s presentation for the University of Georgia.
I am incredibly grateful for the Warren MacKenzie Advancement Award grant because it allowed me to achieve my photography research trip to the Mars Desert Research Station located among the Bentonite Hills in Utah. I created an image archive of textures, colors, and forms in Utah through photographs and sketches, and then incorporated them into my ceramic work. I not only took hundreds of photos at the Mars Desert Research Station and surrounding national parks, but I sketched a ton and was inspired in so many new ways that I did not predict. I am using my photographs and sketches as reference photos for textures and forms in my ceramic thesis work, printing these photographs for my thesis work, and putting the top layer of emulsion from printed photos onto clay. The impact of this project is showing up physically in my work, as well as contributing to my thoughts around awe, movement, framing, and color, which are all key concepts in my thesis.
Intellectual outcomes and experiences that have fueled my work:
– Feeling like I was on Mars and seeing the giant telescopes at the research station was an experience different than anything I’ve ever done in the Southeast. Seeing the telescopes that were as big as me made me feel like a speck of dust in a giant, awe-inspiring world. I plan to create a large display structure that aids in the viewing of my ceramic work similar to the size of the telescopes.
– Looking up at canyons and arches allowed me to feel awe. I felt small when I stood under an arch. The arches framed me and it felt like a whole other world. In my thesis work, I will have a tall wooden display table with a ceramic, rocky arch that the viewer can look up at.
– I hiked and had to move my body (aka scrambling) through slots in the canyons. Having to respond with my body to the natural environment in order to explore the maze-like rocks relates to what I want the viewer to do with my work. I want the viewer to have to crouch down, stand on their tippy toes, bend around a form, look up, and move in closely to view my work, as if they are on a hike in the woods exploring for themselves.
– I did a variety of fun activities like watching the stars and sailing on a sailboat in Utah Lake. Being outside, feeling the dry air blow against my face, and catching fleeting moments (like shooting stars) are the special kind of moments that make life worth living and are what my work is about – discovering moments of awe outside and recording them in clay.
Things I noticed that I have been including in my work:
– The mica and sparkles in the rocks
– Precariousness of rocks like Balancing Rock in Arches National Park
– Red and white marbled rocks
– Really thin slabs of rock in the arches that get carved from wind
– The roundness/smoothness of the Bentonite Hills
– The countless layers of sediment that creates the striped patterns
– Vertical striations as well as horizontal
– Green and tan colors in addition to lots of red
– Bentonite hills that are coming out of rocky hills like a geode
– Arches on top of hills that frame the sky like a window
– Petroglyphs (horses and figures) that show time periods going back to the year 1580.