New Site-Specific Artwork “In Pasture” placed at Djerassi Ranch.
In February and March of this year I was invited to the Djerassi Resident Artists Program to develop new artwork. Located in Woodside, California, on a 583 acre ranch an hour south of San Francisco, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program is the largest fee-free artist residency program west of the Mississippi. It’s an honor to be invited to this prestigious residency and I was fortunate to be in-residence for 30 days as one of a cohort of 5 multi-disciplinary artists. During my residency I was able to explore new materials and using a chainsaw I created a site-specific work from wood sourced from the land. Located on the Stations of Light trail my installation “In Pasture” was dedicated to the memory of Artist and Poet Pamela Djerassi, and imagines a former working ranch horse presiding over the land as her spirit horse. Based on the mythology of Celtic Spirit Horses, and Pamela’s own love of horses, the sculpture is 6’ tall and is a carved and charred wood sculpture of an abstract horse head balancing on a pedastal form that when viewed from a distance resembles the figure of a woman. This artwork was created from wood from the Djerassi site. In Pasture invites us to contemplate the beauty, quiet, and stillness of the Djerassi landscape and honor the history of the land, its fauna, and the memories of all that once passed through that very space.
About the site: *Originally home to the Salson tribe of the Ohlone Indians, the land was later home to logging operations and working cattle ranches well into the 20th century. In the early 1960s the property was purchased by Dr. Carl Djerassi, Stanford Professor of Chemistry, playwright, and passionate patron of the Arts - often referred to as “the Father of the pill.” [Courtesy Djerassi Resident Artists Program]. SMIP Ranch was founded in the 1960s by Carl Djerassi who turned this cattle ranch into an artist residency to honour the memory of his daughter Pamela, an Artist and Poet who committed suicide in 1978.
On Horse Mythology - I grew up in Northern Ireland around horses and like many cultures in the world the horse as symbol -particularly in Celtic Mythology, stems from a time when both women and horses were considered sacred. The horse has been an integral part of shape-shifting human mythology not only in cultures like Ireland but, in the American West and the native tribes of the Americas, where horses represented power, travel without freedom from restraint, and sometimes war.
Special thanks to Program Director, Terra Fuller, Residency Manager, Jewel Carter, Ranch Director, Tim Devoe and Ranch Hands Nacho Juarez and Valerie Harrison with helping me source wood, provide equipment, and for all assistance with installing this work on Djerassi’s Stations of Light Trail.
