Archiving Ice.
Caroline Landau
Svalbard and San Francisco 2017–2018
During the Arctic Circle Artist Residency in October 2017, Caroline made molds from “bergy bits” (small icebergs from calved glaciers). She painted melted wax on individual pieces of ice that washed upon the shores of Bloomstrandbreen, Svalbard in Spitsbergen. Read more on Caroline’s website.
An essay in the Spring 2019 issue by WSU Regents professor of English Debbie Lee describes the work and impact of the Artist Residency: Arctic chronicles
Writer and Washington State University Regents professor of English Debbie Lee traveled to Svalbard in the Arctic aboard the tall ship Antigua, as part of the Arctic Circle Artist Residency Program. Follow the journey through Lee’s photographs below, and read her essay, “Arctic chronicles,” in the Spring 2019 issue.
Washington State University landscape architecture professor and poet Jolie Kaytes reflects on the complex emotions and rational considerations about the Columbia River watershed through poems that give new ways to consider our part in the stories of the River.
Fishhook Park
A tongue stopping “f”
with a soft “ish,”
tied to a tight lipped “h”
caught on “ook.”
Hard to swallow.
Where the Palouse Band gathered,
homed their family bones
now buried by the Snake River’s
stopped up waters, slow and dumb.
» More …
After thousands of years of use for food, transportation, and trade, the Columbia River’s dynamics have changed, resulting in unforeseen consequences and deeply mixed emotions.
Once there were Five Sisters. Because they loved to eat salmon, the sisters kept a dam at the mouth of Big River to prevent the fish from swimming upstream. Every night they feasted on a wonderful, fat salmon. This didn’t suit Coyote, who thought that the salmon need the people and the people need the salmon. Or maybe he was jealous and wanted some of that fat salmon for himself. So Coyote tricked the sisters to get into their … » More …
Boulder, Colorado: A Photographic Portrait
Twin Lights: 2018
Kieffer, a 20-year resident of Colorado, captures the diverse culture and personality of the city of Boulder through his images of the city’s people, architecture, cultural events, and lovely green spaces.
Closure
Tasche Laine ’89 Comm.
Skye Blue Press: 2018
Laine’s first novel tells of childhood sweethearts Trey and Tara who fall in love through writing letters. Based on a true story, the Vancouver author’s plot follows the different paths of the young pair until they come back together after 20 years.
Glass mountain
I enjoy finding and connecting bits of information discovered serendipitously that bring enlightenment just as the researchers were enlightened about Broborg glass by chance conversations and discussions. “Fires Burned, Cauldrons Bubble” [Spring 2018] reminded me of a fairy tale, “Princess on a Glass Mountain.” Knowing that fairy tales and storytelling are often embellished verbal histories based on a fact (a particular time, place, person or event), I researched it. The Norwegians, Swedes, and Poles have versions: a glass mountain, princess, and golden apples growing on top. Perhaps the Swedish Vikings carried the tale to Poland as the Swedish Vikings usually traveled … » More …
Plato is sitting at the feet of his mentor Socrates, writing down what the old philosopher says. What Socrates is saying, ironically, is that writing is bad for you: It rots your memory. Preserved in Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates’s opinion of the then-emerging technology sounds strange to us now—until you recall that that’s pretty much exactly what pundits in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have been saying about TV, video games, and texting.
Dene Grigar, director of Washington State University Vancouver’s program in Creative Media and Digital Culture, laughs and nods. She’s also the president of the Electronic Literature Organization, an international team of scholars and … » More …