The wild outdoors is, in the truest sense, sacred. It inspires awe and reverence in those open to its voice; it commands lasting respect, and motivates the defense of its intrinsic and often vulnerable nature. As artists, our mutual passion revolves around a creative response to wild places that are held sacred. We believe the spirit of a place is embedded in its landscape, and the wildlife and people that inhabit it. However, attempts to reveal that spirit in a single artistic form are often frustrated by the natural limitations imposed by the tradition of a solitary artist working in a single medium.

We approach this problem differently. Our methodology employs orthogonal art forms to capture and distill the essence of a sacred space, allowing its voice to be heard strongly and clearly. Two artists—one a writer, the other a photographer—collaborate in an artistic approach that uses time, place, proximity, and contraposition to reveal underlying structures in land and life.

This collaborative artistic process—successfully applied in landscapes as diverse as Sequoia National Park, Olympic National Park, and the Oregon coast and high desert—involves both artists being in the same physical location at the same time, each capturing visual or written images while working independently and without work-related communication during the time of capture. Subsequently, each artist refines her or his individual work and then we combine the two media into a single visual/verbal image that attempts to give voice to the spirit of the place.

We hope you enjoy the collaborations. Thank you for visiting!

Katrina Hays, Writer

Steven McBurnett, Photographer