Environmental Restitution (2,026) $$10,005.00 Earth, air, fire, and creek: represented here not as subject matter, but as equals in the room. For too long we’ve treated the natural world as a backdrop; something to extract from, build on, and take for granted, instead of something to learn from, to commune with. This piece asks us to become students again: to listen to what the land, creek, and air have always been telling us, and to reconnect with a guidance we’ve forgotten how to follow. These four boxes hold what was taken and what remains: dirt from the bank of Spring Creek; water from its current; a box left open to air; and a mark left by fire. What is owed here has no honest price. To pay this price is not to settle a debt, it is to acknowledge one. Julia Redmon Bella Vista, Arkansas Mixed Media & Collage, Natural Materials / Found Objects What is Spring Creek to you? Water is the element that reaches out. It’s the one that beckons us to listen: the pitter-patter of rain on leaves, the trickle of a stream over stones, the meditative pull of a fountain in a garden. There’s a particular kind of relief in it too, the refreshment of stepping into a cold spring on a hot day, the way it wakes up your whole body at once. I see water, Spring Creek, as the outstretched hand for re-connection, one of the most accessible entry points to commune with the natural world. https://www.instagram.com/juliaofthevalley/
Read MoreCurrent: Park to Pump, Julia Redmon
Current: Park to Pump (2,026) $$314.00 Current: Park to Pump is a hanging lamp turned from red oak sourced in Springdale. Its body traces the contour of Spring Creek as it runs northwest from Park Street to the Pump Station Road bridge, through downtown Springdale. I let the creek’s current set the lamp’s rhythm, timed to the actual minutes it takes the water to carry a leaf from Park to Pump. The light stays on for that stretch, then switches off for the hike back up to Park Street to catch it again. I made this piece to find my way back to a memory. I grew up in Strasburg, Virginia, where the Town Run cut through the center of everything, and my friends and I spent whole summers along the banks: catching crawdads, floating leaf boats just to see how far they’d go. Spring Creek gave me an unexpected way back to that feeling. At this point in my life, I’m chasing that childlike joy again. I stood at Park Street, let my body remember the uncontrollable laughter, the curiosity, the architectural marvel of stick masts. I felt home. Julia Redmon Bella Vista, Arkansas Natural Materials / Found Objects, Other (Please specify) What is Spring Creek to you? I’m living in Bella Vista and new-ish to NWA. Perrodin Supply drew me to Springdale’s creative spirit and creek spirit. Spring Creek mirrors the Town Run that flows through downtown Strasburg, VA, where I grew up: the same slow current, the same winding banks. At the Park Street crossing this summer, I recognized the pull. Now I go back for dips with friends, for some of the joy I’d misplaced, and to hear what the creek is saying. https://www.instagram.com/juliaofthevalley/
Read MoreCreekside Bluffs, Elsa Carenbauer
Creekside Bluffs (2,026) $$150.00 This mixed media piece is built from dryer sheets, sequins, and tree bark to form a layered composition inspired by the limestone bluffs of the Ozarks. Purple, red/coral, and blue/aqua tones reference the shifting light across the bluff faces at dawn and dusk. Sequins reflect the glint of sunlight on wet stone and water below the cliffs. The work uses recycled and repurposed materials to echo the erosion and weathering found in the bluffs themselves. Elsa Carenbauer Fayetteville, Arkansas Mixed Media & Collage, Natural Materials / Found Objects What is Spring Creek to you? Landscapes carry history the way bodies do — through accumulation, through what’s been worn away, through what remains visible and what stays hidden beneath the surface. Spring Creek and the Ozarks are home to my family, who came from different backgrounds and landed here. The Buffalo River is where we spent our summers, holding memories with loved ones I still carry. Its sediment, built up over time, and its blending of water and stone reflect that same layering in me. https://www.nobonesleft.com/ https://www.instagram.com/nobonesleft/
Read MoreWatersnake, Elsa Carenbauer
Watersnake (2,026) $$150.00 This mixed media piece is built from dryer sheets, spray insulation foam, collage, and embroidery to form a layered landscape inspired by Spring Creek, Arkansas. White and green tones reference the creek’s limestone and algae-covered waterline, while a watersnake sits at the center as the piece’s focal point. The work uses recycled and repurposed materials to echo the natural processes of erosion and renewal found in the landscape itself. Elsa Carenbauer Fayetteville, Arkansas Mixed Media & Collage, Natural Materials / Found Objects What is Spring Creek to you? Landscapes carry history the way bodies do — through accumulation, through what’s been worn away, through what remains visible and what stays hidden beneath the surface. Spring Creek and the Ozarks are home to my family, who came from different backgrounds and landed here. The Buffalo River is where we spent our summers, holding memories with loved ones I still carry. Its sediment, built up over time, and its blending of water and stone reflect that same layering in me. https://www.nobonesleft.com/ https://www.instagram.com/nobonesleft/
Read MoreSpring Creek Spirit Vessel, Brandon Weston
Spring Creek Spirit Vessel (2,026) $$0.00 Spirit vessels work on the principle of embodiment. In Spiritism and many folk traditions that have Spiritism as a foundation, embodiment is the view that spirits can take on a physical form in order to experience the world in a different way and learn the lessons they need to learn in order to evolve and elevate. A spirit vessel isn’t a trap, it isn’t a prison, it’s a tool a spirit can use to experience the world. I like to compare it to a submarine, which gives us humans the opportunity to experience a part of the world we normally wouldn’t given our physical limitations. Spring Creek doesn’t need embodiment. As a spirit it has its own life, desires, motivations, and aspirations. But, sometimes even spirits who don’t need embodiment might still want it in order to do some work they need to do or experience life in a different way. A spirit vessel is a body for the disembodied. This spirit vessel hasn’t been created yet. My initial planning involved asking two main questions to Spring Creek, which it was able to answer through a divinatory system called Geomancy. 1) Do you want embodiment? and 2) If given embodiment, will you use it for the benefit, healing, growth, and wise guidance of all beings? Both questions yielded a neutral water element indicator tending towards auspiciousness, which I interpreted as Spring Creek being ready for whatever adventure awaits–a very watery approach, I expected nothing less from a creek. Having received a yes as the answer for both of my questions I can now begin crafting the vessel. It will be “birthed” on the new moon in August and empowered using prayer and ritual for the entire waxing cycle, finally sealed on the full moon in Pisces (an auspicious water element moon). The vessel itself is a large glass jar that will contain holestones and other rocks from the creek, gemstone chips, crystals, as well as creek water. It will be adorned with mixed media pieces including clothing and a paper mache head. The finer details of the appearance are still in flux and will develop as the process continues. Brandon Weston Fayetteville, Arkansas Natural Materials / Found Objects What is Spring Creek to you? I grew up in NWA and most of my family is from here going way back. I played along Spring…
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