Bisti Badlands Artist's Statement
My first visit to Bisti happened while I was on my way to somewhere else. The trip took me along old Route 66 through towns like Gallup, Winslow and Holbrook past kitschy dinosaur statues, wigwam motels and shops selling petrified wood and meteorites. By the time I pulled into the gravel parking lot I was already transported back in time and it would soon be clear that everything about Bisti is related to the forces of time.
Translated from the Navajo word Bistahí, Bisti means "among the adobe formations". The 42,000 acre Bisti / De-Na-Zin Wilderness area is located south of Farmington, New Mexico and is overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. The erosion and weathering of interbedded sandstone, shale, mudstone, coal, and silt has formed an endless variety of mysterious spires and hoodoos which were once part of a vast shallow ocean where fossils and petrified wood can still be found.
Before that first visit, I had already traveled extensively in the western United States and was a sucker for natural formations; the sand tufas of Mono Lake, rocks at Point Lobos and Shore Acres, sand dunes, and countless other mud cracks, fissures and eroded cliffs. I was younger then and I responded to these dramatic places by attacking them with my view camera, twisting whatever I saw into my own configurations and arrangements. However, Bisti would change all that.
Walking along the wash which cuts into the heart of Bisti feels as though you're on the surface of the moon or a distant planet. Badlands erode and spill down in both directions, dominated by muted tans and grays, punctuated by areas where the clayish surface is blindingly white. Aside from horse manure and the occasional rabbit bush, I saw no other signs of life on that first visit. Only eerie silence.
From a distance these otherworldly formations and hoodoos are intoxicating and this pulled me deeper and deeper into this protected area. As I drew closer they took on new forms, new arrangements. I wandered aimlessly in every direction. At over 6000 feet of elevation the more I stumbled around with my heavy gear, the more exhausted I became and the more I realized that I was only searching for the bizarre and the extraordinary. Bisti presented so many other opportunities. Among all its natural oddities - the hoodoos and the spires, I discovered a subtle, beautiful place where time seemed to stand still.
Tired, sore and frustrated, I sat down my tripod and committed myself to making work from the very spot where I stood. I looked more deeply with my camera instead of my eyes, transforming what was there into something entirely new. The result was a breakthrough photograph for me which is included in this portfolio. I even photographed delicate mud cracks on the surface of the parking area as I was leaving that day. From that first trip, it was clear that Bisti was more than a mere stopover on the way to someplace else. I had to come back.
Trips to Bisti became a compulsion. I returned four more times including one fruitless trip during a massive snowstorm. Along the way, a body of work emerged which I began to edit into a portfolio. However, before I could make one final visit, real life intervened. My daughter was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. A year later I was ravaged by a bacterial infection which required emergency open heart surgery. Photography was put on hold.
In the fall of 2012 I returned a different person than before. Weaker and fragile from surgery but determined to finish what I had started 7 years earlier. On the surface Bisti seemed unchanged, but seasons of melting snow had slickened the clayish surfaces, allowing rocks to slide into new positions, new arrangements. Hoodoos had crumbled and new striations had formed. Although Bisti is known for these bizarre and mysterious formations, it also offers up the rhythms of life. Insensitive to them at first, I learned to look beyond the garish and the strange. Time moves slowly in Bisti, but even in this place of fossilized dinosaur bones and ancient trees, change can still be found - just as it had found me.
Scott Killian
February 1, 2013
My first visit to Bisti happened while I was on my way to somewhere else. The trip took me along old Route 66 through towns like Gallup, Winslow and Holbrook past kitschy dinosaur statues, wigwam motels and shops selling petrified wood and meteorites. By the time I pulled into the gravel parking lot I was already transported back in time and it would soon be clear that everything about Bisti is related to the forces of time.
Translated from the Navajo word Bistahí, Bisti means "among the adobe formations". The 42,000 acre Bisti / De-Na-Zin Wilderness area is located south of Farmington, New Mexico and is overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. The erosion and weathering of interbedded sandstone, shale, mudstone, coal, and silt has formed an endless variety of mysterious spires and hoodoos which were once part of a vast shallow ocean where fossils and petrified wood can still be found.
Before that first visit, I had already traveled extensively in the western United States and was a sucker for natural formations; the sand tufas of Mono Lake, rocks at Point Lobos and Shore Acres, sand dunes, and countless other mud cracks, fissures and eroded cliffs. I was younger then and I responded to these dramatic places by attacking them with my view camera, twisting whatever I saw into my own configurations and arrangements. However, Bisti would change all that.
Walking along the wash which cuts into the heart of Bisti feels as though you're on the surface of the moon or a distant planet. Badlands erode and spill down in both directions, dominated by muted tans and grays, punctuated by areas where the clayish surface is blindingly white. Aside from horse manure and the occasional rabbit bush, I saw no other signs of life on that first visit. Only eerie silence.
From a distance these otherworldly formations and hoodoos are intoxicating and this pulled me deeper and deeper into this protected area. As I drew closer they took on new forms, new arrangements. I wandered aimlessly in every direction. At over 6000 feet of elevation the more I stumbled around with my heavy gear, the more exhausted I became and the more I realized that I was only searching for the bizarre and the extraordinary. Bisti presented so many other opportunities. Among all its natural oddities - the hoodoos and the spires, I discovered a subtle, beautiful place where time seemed to stand still.
Tired, sore and frustrated, I sat down my tripod and committed myself to making work from the very spot where I stood. I looked more deeply with my camera instead of my eyes, transforming what was there into something entirely new. The result was a breakthrough photograph for me which is included in this portfolio. I even photographed delicate mud cracks on the surface of the parking area as I was leaving that day. From that first trip, it was clear that Bisti was more than a mere stopover on the way to someplace else. I had to come back.
Trips to Bisti became a compulsion. I returned four more times including one fruitless trip during a massive snowstorm. Along the way, a body of work emerged which I began to edit into a portfolio. However, before I could make one final visit, real life intervened. My daughter was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. A year later I was ravaged by a bacterial infection which required emergency open heart surgery. Photography was put on hold.
In the fall of 2012 I returned a different person than before. Weaker and fragile from surgery but determined to finish what I had started 7 years earlier. On the surface Bisti seemed unchanged, but seasons of melting snow had slickened the clayish surfaces, allowing rocks to slide into new positions, new arrangements. Hoodoos had crumbled and new striations had formed. Although Bisti is known for these bizarre and mysterious formations, it also offers up the rhythms of life. Insensitive to them at first, I learned to look beyond the garish and the strange. Time moves slowly in Bisti, but even in this place of fossilized dinosaur bones and ancient trees, change can still be found - just as it had found me.
Scott Killian
February 1, 2013