This event recap is provided by Events Assistant Liz Crandall and Arts Assistant Moriah Arnold.
Community members recently gathered at Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts & Agriculture for the final Open Studio of the season, where they heard from the current residents: multimedia artist Leah Crosby (they/them), writer Margot Boyer-Dry (she/her), and sound artist Andrew Paul Keiper (he/they).
A beautiful, dark afternoon set the stage for attendees to divide up into two groups, which rotated between Leah’s geometric glass pieces in the “Old Shop” studio and Margot’s reading from her book in the classroom studio. Afterwards, everyone congregated in the classroom studio for a lecture and sound display by Andrew.
Geometric Rhetoric with Leah Crosby
Our first visit of the night was with Leah Crosby in the “Old Shop” studio. During their time here, Leah has been experimenting with different materials and approaches to making. Coming into the residency with no specific project in mind, Leah has been searching for their next question to explore in their studio practice.
While at the Ranch, Leah has been reflecting on the idea of fences and how we use them to create borders, offer protection, and provide direction. Exploring this theme, they created layered sculptures incorporating glass, embroidery mesh, and other materials.
Quilt block patterns have also been a source of inspiration. Using colored film cut into geometric shapes, Leah arranged quilt-inspired compositions on glass panels. One of the patterns that informed this work is the “Road to California” block, originally created by pioneer women.
A Novel Moment with Margot Boyer-Dry
Margot, journalist by day, has been writing her first novel during her time here at PMRCAA. Her project is focused on a young photo journalist documenting the wildlife crossing sites in a place just like Central Oregon. During her portion of the open studio, she read an excerpt from her writing. The setting: the side of a busy highway at the soon-to-be wildlife crossing site. The reading opens with her main character driving towards the site, trying not to get run off the road by the vehicle behind her before she safely pulls to the side. She reflects on how dangerous it is for her in her car, let alone for an animal attempting to cross.
During the writing of her novel, Margot has also been exploring this idea of fences. How do fences help or hinder wildlife migrations? How do we view the use of land? How do we view land ownership? All of these questions have informed her writing and research for her project, and the community had much to contribute with their own interactions with wildlife and experiences with these issues.
Uranium Mania & the American West with Andrew Paul Keiper
Following Margot and Leah’s presentations, community members gathered again in the classroom to listen to sound and video artist Andrew Paul Keiper. He began by talking about his past work and collaborations with artist Kei Ito, whose grandfather was in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. Meanwhile, Andrew’s grandfather worked as an engineer during WW2 for the Manhattan Project. This rare connection brought about a desire to collaborate in a healing capacity which materialized in their installations in Baltimore, MD at the War Memorial.
Andrew’s recent work has been exploring land use in the American West with a focus on capturing and examining the open, quiet places. While experiencing missile silo sites in Nebraska and uranium mines on his journey, he has noted that many of the landforms are made by volcanism. During his time in residence, Andrew has been a self-proclaimed “forest dweller,” documenting the surrounding woods and examining how we interact with and influence the landscape. He has also taken interest in geology and rockhounding, legally gathering pieces of rare obsidian such as lace and mahogany from Glass Buttes near the unincorporated community of Brothers.
During his portion of the event, he played a sound-based piece he composed called the “Chain of Custody in Uranium.” The audience shared their reactions, noting that it reminded them of earthquakes, a movie score with building tension, elephants digesting something, and other musings.
After the Visits
Following the studio rotations, the artists came together to share about their residency experience as a group and the common themes that they’ve discovered in each other’s work. Their discussion topics have been on fences and borders, wildlife migration patterns, volcanoes, and much more. Over the past 4 weeks they have supported one another in their practices, developing questions, and accompanying each other on outings for their research in various forms.
This open studio marked the end of the 2025 residency season and it was a great cohort to end on. We appreciated the community’s engagement and thoughtful questions during the artists presentations. We can’t wait to see how our residents explore our theme of Adaptations in 2026.
Thank you to our residents and community members for making the tenth, and final, Open Studio event of 2025 a success. Our next Open Studio will take place in Spring 2026 – stay tuned!
Photos by PMRCAA
