I grew up in the far southeast corner of New Mexico—an oil boomtown on the edge of the Permian Basin. Because my father worked for a large oil company, one of his perks was weeks of vacation time that we spent mostly in northern New Mexico. Dad was from West Texas, but Mom’s family emigrated from Scotland when she was a child and she was raised in Montreal, Canada. While visiting Dad’s family seemed like a journey, the long car trips to Montreal definitely were.

My first realizations of landscape came from those car trips. I was overwhelmed driving through the mid-west seeing deciduous forests, homes that looked like history. The transition from high desert to agricultural lands and then the “city” of Big Spring always captivated me. My first inkling of what I wanted to do in the grown-up future came while we made one of our annual trips to northern New Mexico. The endless, rolling spaces, the open sky; I wanted to be a rancher; not because I loved cattle or horses, but because I wanted to be part of that space. Later those vistas I watched as I crossed the country, drove from here to there, led me to art and then geology.

I am leaving Jackson, Wyoming, my home of 30 years; the place I believed would be my final home. Join me as I seep through the West looking for my place in the landscape.

Louise Lasley