One bright morning, I looked – again – at a power pole obstructing a scenic view, thought about how we’ve trained ourselves to ignore utilitarian necessities, look past, over or around them.

    Back in the studio, I painted the power pole: the moss growing on it, the birds flitting with it, the tangle of wires and transformers and connections stretching in all directions. From there, my awareness snowballed. There are functional objects in almost every Western Canadian vista, almost every landscape view.

    “Why be interested in these often-ugly, usually-large objects?” I asked myself. Art, especially commercial art, usually depicts what we collectively define as beautiful. Deviations from what we believe to be the natural landscape norm rarely make it into the picture. Deftly omitted, the lack of infrastructure has become a significant visual silence. Rarely, do we stand in front of an aesthetic work and say, “I wonder what material objects were left out.”

   Philosophers view objects as places of discovery about our perceptions of reality. From this perspective, the utilitarian objects widely present in natural landscapes are places of discovery. This is exciting, an opportunity for audience and artist to together explore new views. These might just be literal views. They could also be emotional views, the letting go of bucolic myths, the (re)discovery of our dependence on the power industrial intrusions give us to manage nature.                              ~Beth Gallup