“Sometimes I want an older version of myself to hold me and shake the unrelenting fear out of me, someone who can definitively tell me that everything will be fine; someone to tell me that it turned out to be worth it,” writes artist Lindsey Yeager in her artist statement.

In The Once and Future World, J.B. MacKinnon revisits an Earth that feels mythical in its abundance and vitality. He then describes shifting baselines, showing how the progressively reduced states of nature become the new ‘real’ or ‘normal’. Though this new normal can seem heavy and depressing, it is in the journey of imagination that MacKinnon shows us how to choose to live in a wilder world.

In this exhibition, five women artists invite us into their imaginations. Nostalgia, in Jasmine McGlade’s photographs, charms the viewer, urging them to slow down and gaze with tenderness at the present moment. Ann Morgan employs AI to conjure fictional landscapes informed by others' idealized worlds. Lindsey's vibrant paintings, drenched in techno colors, appear as relics from ancient civilizations or foreshadowing of future societies, entrancing and wise like age-old myths. Molly Altman molds fleeting moments into works of clay, aiming to preserve and perhaps delay the delicate balance of life. Finally, Rachel Bock captures frozen air bubbles in her photographs, which speak in Morse code, unveiling the hidden secrets of an active underwater world.

Reflecting on Lindsey’s wish, I happened upon the words of Mary Oliver carved on a stone at the John Denver Park in Aspen:

Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

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We extend our sincere thanks to Aspen Public Radio for their support of this exhibition.