Patagonia: impressions of remote and important places
Jeinimeni Research Reel
Magellanic Missed Connections: When missteps and laughter and awe pulled us through the forests of Jeinemeni, as we looked for wood chips and the Magellanic Woodpecker.
The experience: November 2019, Aysen Chile. A partnership between Round River Conservation Studies and Corporación Nacional Forestal (CONAF) to study the families and nests of the Magellanic woodpecker (Campephilus mageellanicus) in Jeinemeni. Ten days during which we observed red-headed woodpecker pairs swooping through the forest, tapping for bugs and excavating cavities under the bark of the lenga trees. We combed the forest. We were blinded by dense and tangled patterns. Even after a week of walking there were many surprises. Skunk encounters. Snowfall. Puma tracks. Gojas de Sangre tumbling from tiny waterfalls. In the old growth, it felt like we were swimming through an interconnectivity of roots, hyphae, mineral, and animal.
The print: This is a copper plate intaglio step etch I proofed in November 2020. The inspiration to use this process came from an earlier print I made about old growth trees, called Dancing on Your Lovely Bones. There is something mysterious and wondrous about these intaglio prints. A gaze intensifies into a long look, a remembrance. The eye collects pieces of complexity, the broad shapes created with such minute details, the memory is actively deepened. After bumbling over the mark making for so many hours, I am surprised by the wondrous and abstract way the plate holds ink and the ways that the paper catches it.
Moehl in Cochamó: Two nineteen year olds traveling without a tent get utterly soaked and fall in love with a vulnerable, granite rimmed valley.
The experience: November 2016, Valle Cochamó, Chile. Following backpacker’s whispers in hostels and bus stations, we found ourselves trekking into this valley just as snow was melting off of granite domes and amphitheaters. Our packs were stuffed with a weeks worth of cheap tuna, crackers and oats from a supermarket in Argentina. Once in the valley, we found ourselves among salt-of-the-earth locals that shared their stories and love of the landscape with us. For Moehl and I, each day was an incredible and unanticipated adventure into alpine terrain. With no premonitions of what lay in store, the bulging peaks, lush rainforest, and the people we found in Cochamó stick with us as something to remember, cherish, and return to.
The print: Moehl was one of the first copper plate intaglio step etches I created. Much like the traveling theme of the image, the plate itself was scratched on the road — in kombucha shops, airports, dorm rooms and meadows. Squiggly hard ground lines echo the surprising topography of the Cochamó mountains. A secondary photopolymer intaglio plate adds atmospheric and vegetal textures in some of the editions of this print.
Fitzroya: Digital prints capturing the texture of tall alerce trees and clean granite.
