When I see a work of art, I know that I'm supposed to think of it as the only possible way I could see it. All the decisions have been made, and this thing is the way it is because it couldn't be any other way. Except sometimes I imagine it slightly differently, or I talk to the artist, and I hear about the dozens of other ways it might have been, had the artist made this choice, or had chance intervened differently, or had yet another draft been made. Maybe this is the sketch for the real work, or maybe the real work happened a sketch ago. I like imagining a whole series of forms and materials stretching out like an evolutionary lineup, or a police lineup, moving in both directions from what's in front of me.

I was reminded of this in an email from Seattle artist Chauney Peck, who's doing an artist residency in Wyoming right now. She wrote,

It's 6 degrees today and it might be negative 15 tomorrow! It was 60 last week, which was totally great. The setting is amazingly remote, but the ranch is comfortable and the studios are warm and well lit which balances the isolation and harsh weather.

Here are photos of the area and images I'm working on. I'm making watercolors and vinyl pictures from recent cosmology and earth science discoveries. I'm happy I have 3 more weeks at the residency. I'm already devising a way to stay longer.

It was followed by these images, a lineup of what she's looking at and what she's making of what she's looking at, all mixed up.