Fossilize

The two dinosaurs used to stand opposite one another, as sentinels, welcoming visitors to Vernal. The very fact that one was feminine and one masculine made it easy for me to believe that they were the embodiment of my grandparents. Helen was Dinah, a pink apatosaurus and George was a T Rex, together they had come to symbolize Dinosaur Land. It was underneath the watchful eyes of these dinosaurs that I grew up. In my mind the dinosaurs were immortals, the icons of my religion. They seemed to age with a different clock, but still they weren’t free from time’s passing. Over the years T Rex had become a martyr, filled with arrows like St. Sebastian, while Dinah stood quietly, a witness against the executioners, from her post in front of her vacant motel. 


One year ago I traveled back to Vernal to document the changes that had transpired over the last 10 years. I had a hypothesis that Vernal’s recent economic boom, caused by increased oil production in and around the area, would be the proverbial straw set to break the camels back. I saw the recent development as a personal attack against my history, against my eden of sagebrush and sandstone. I was going to stop it, I was going to preserve my past. I struggled with how to do this, that is until I realized that Vernal, the city I was so protective of, had really only existed in my mind, the result of my fondness for the past. 


Through a series of simple projects I began to create a modest fossil record of my Vernal. In this record there are stories of my childhood, stories of Vernal’s rich folklore, and a visual glossary of Vernal as a place, person, and Idea. Upon completing one of the larger projects I realized I had subconsciously reunited the two dinosaurs. Their reunion comes in the form of two old photographs, from my mother’s photo album, placed together into a spread. Here, on the page of one of my projects Vernal exists again as it once did, a testament to the power of the communicative quality of images, of narrative.

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Too much emphasis has been placed on finding meaning from the artefacts that artist and designers create. This over emphasis has placed one of life’s simple pleasures at risk of becoming extinct.

On the north facing wall of studio I have hung a small branch from a magnolia tree. It was something I found on one of my many morning walks. My reason for picking it up was simple, I liked it. I have been ask what it means, and I usually give no response, because it means nothing. It is simply a branch from a magnolia tree that I found in Hollywood Cemetery. Still, it reminds me. With its presence it brings countless associations and random memories together. Converting them into brief periods of nostalgic bliss. For example right now, it takes me to the moment when I first picked it up. After passing the branch I make the decision to turn around walk back and pick up the branch. At this same time a car with driver and a dachshund passed by. As we made eye contact via the rearview mirror I understood the non verbal question they were asking, what was I doing?

Truth is I am not actually from Vernal, and this year is a landmark year. As of January 1st I have now spent more years outside of Vernal than I have spent inside.

Sitting on the kitchen counter of my parents house there is an old ceramic turtle which also happens to be a bank. It is my father’s, a souvenir from his time in Oklahoma (I think). The tail of the turtle is chipped and one of the legs has been glued back on.


I believe there is something we can learn from turtles, maybe they have something to teach us.

Recorded in Vernal, Utah on July 17, 2008

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There is a cave outside of Vernal, that according to legend, has no end.”

On a recent trip home I came across my father’s down vest. As a youth I only wore his vintage clothes, wore them till they were threadbare. Finding this artefact, relatively well preserved, I believe, is a good omen.

I remember seeing meteorites falling to earth. I remember wishing on them. The skies of Vernal have been a haven for the stars. Since the invention of the light bulb man has tried to separate themselves from the natural light of celestial bodies, with some success. Which is why I’ve found a recent article about meteorites so puzzling.


It appears the US Congress has given NASA the task (ordered) to find and track every orbiting body of rock that has potential to crash into our planet. The article was recent but it gave a weird sense of déjà vu. Hollywood had been fascinated with idea in the late 90s—and who would not be.


Our lives are so painfully boring. each day just like the last, seasons come and seasons go. repetition rules our world. repetition by itself isn’t rhythm. When the repetition is disrupted, becomes unpredictable, our interest peaks. We wish on the falling stars.


Fear kept me inside today. Still, things are alright I have plenty of food and water, enough for a few weeks, and I’ll be eating well. I may run low on water, but I can always go to the river, I have a purifier. I have drawn the shutters and closed the blinds. The dead bolt is locked, and the latches are closed, the lights are off. My phone is on but has remained quiet. So now I sit in my bed and read, and read. In a while I’ll make breakfast, something nice. Maybe French toast with oranges or perhaps baked eggs—I have got the time.


They say the Chesapeake Bay was formed by a impact crater. It feels good to live on the edge of something so significant the planets history. I’d like to live near the impact crater that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. It would feel good to sit and think of our own demise in a place like that.


It is eleven fifty-nine now and soon it will all be over, Black Friday that is. That ad-hoc holiday created by greed but somehow appropriately grimily named.

In April of 2008 I sat in front of my computer cycling back and forth between several web pages. An inner conflict had developed. I had chosen to set out on a project that dealt with me actively reconstructing and telling the story of my hometown Vernal, Utah transitioning from a tourist town to an oil boomtown. The first problem I had to answer (the source of the conflict) was: where do I begin the research process? Google Maps was open and from the glowing red, green and blue pixels of my screen I could see it all. Satellite photographs of the entire arid region in relatively high detail. On screen there were images of newly sprouted subdivision abutting the unique geological formations that had existed for thousands of years in solitude. These formations held my memories of the place, and were the very reason I was going to work on the project. Pausing for a moment I asked again if I could do all my research here, in Richmond, Virginia on the web? It did not take me too long before I answered the question, closed Google maps, and clicked “purchase” from the online ticketing agency. 

For the next 90 days I worked furiously “on location” in Vernal, Utah. Where I filled boxes and folders with thousands of photographs, audio files, and other various artefacts all with the hope that I would be able to articulately and elegantly describe the place I remember. Over the course of the trip I learned a great many things both about myself and the community. I recognize that it is a rare opportunity I had to be able to relocate physically and devote 100% of my time towards research. It was incredibly valuable. By default this type of immersion brought a new perspective not available to outsiders. While immersed in the community I began to realize that the sediment from my eroding memories was not simply fading away into nothing, instead it was accumulating as new memories of others. This accumulation could either contribute positively or negatively to the development of place. Place being defined as the relationships that exist between people, history, and landscape.

Folding and uplift began in the late Cretaceous time (Laramide Revolution), some 70 million years ago, and continued to recur at intervals during the Tertiary, particularly late Eocene, when maximum elevation is thought to have taken place. At this time uplift was accompanied by large-scale faulting. Total elevation was approximately 45,000 feet, but probably at no time did the range greatly exceed its present height because erosion more or less kept pace with uplift.

People. During the middle of the summer, while still fully immersed in the project, I found myself in Provo, Utah a city about 200 miles from Vernal. I was in route to the wilderness of Southern Utah but had taken a stop over to visit a friend. It was July 4th and the town was celebrating the American holiday in traditional fashion, with a parade. My hostess/friend had invited me join her for a family barbecue at her aunts home, which happened to be on the parade route. Being someone who will never turn down an invitation, I agreed. As we approached the house, amidst the latter part of the parade, I realized this was an event not to be taken lightly. Introduction soon ensued, and I found myself in a swirl of conversations. Where topics ranged from: tree forts, simple gardening techniques, how to build a rickshaw, landscaping with outdoor staircases, carrot costumes for adults, and probably everything in between. Somewhere between bicycles and slate roofs the food was brought out. Lemonade, burgers, and bean salad created a pause in conversation. Plates were filled in a rhythmical fashion. Then as if what we were talking about before did not matter we moved on to a myriad of other new and exciting topics including: peas, spinach, and fruit. As the barbecue was wrapping up I was summoned over to a table where I was introduced to Lillian and LeGrand who had over the course of the barbecue heard about my project. Lillian, the matriarch of the family, and LeGrand, her brother had both gone to high school in Vernal. But had left shortly after. That was over 50 years ago, they explained. I began to answer their queries explaining why I had the interest in Vernal. LeGrand then took control of the conversation and began recounting his memories. After only a few minutes connections were made. LeGrand had played football with my grandfather, and knew him rather well. Once this was established the names began to flow liberally from his mind. “What about Royal Henderson, Henry Millecam, Yvonne?” He began to ask. I felt foolish, realizing that I should know these people. For the next hour I sat in the company of these two former residents from Vernal and simply listened to them recount their experiences. I was in awe.

During the Paleozoic era, life became abundant and highly developed even in the earliest period, the Cambrian. The long transition from the simpler, earlier forms of life to the later, more complex ones with external shells is not always clearly indicated. Metamorphism and erosion of rock layers have helped produce the gap in our knowledge of this transition period. New fossil discoveries may in time, however, help to complete this life record.

History. Not being able to completely separate myself from the digital world, which was never my intention, I found myself perusing through items on Ebay. I was mostly looking for printed ephemera: postcards, books, maps, et cetera. Oddly enough I found what I was looking for. A seller, located in Florida, happened to own an early United States Geological Survey map of Vernal. Listed in the description of the map was this statement “Perfect for History Buffs, Treasure Hunters, Geo-Cache Enthusiast, Avid Collectors”. Naturally I had to purchased it. When it arrived I immediately pulled it out to find the coordinates of Watson a ghost town I had read about in the library of the local historical society. The drive to Watson was easier than I imagined. A freshly paved road heads south from Vernal. The pavement was strikingly dark as it crosses over the rainbow colored clays of Jurassic age sediments. The road hummed with a steady stream of trucks heading towards the oil and natural gas fields. Eventually I parted with the traffic and pointed the car east following two dusty ruts toward Watson. Walking to the indention where the town once stood I could not help but pause and think of the mortality of my Vernal. What would cause its demise? Watson’s slow death had been caused in part by the automobile which brought about the removal of the short line railroad that had linked the small mining town to civilization. What is it that links Vernal to the rest of civilization? Everywhere around the foot print of the town I saw the efforts and successes of the clay hills in reclaiming the past with the intention of creating the present.

The most important formation…is the Morrison, of late Jurassic age, which contains the fossil bones of dinosaurs… The Morrison… includes a large variety of sedimentary rock types and structures of much interest. The formation is made up of more than 800 feet of conglomerate, sandstone, shale, claystone, marlstone, bentonite, and nodulare limestone. Thin layers of aragonite (a calcium carbonate mineral occur in the shale beds, and aragonite concretions of small and large size, some replaced with jasper or chalcedony, have formed in the layers of limestone. A five-foot bed of chert crops out in many places in the upper shale. Some of it occurs as a nondescript gray quartz-flint rock. But frequently it is found to contain distinct varieties of minerals, such as blue and red dendrite, red and yellow jasper, chalcedony, agate, and opal, or mixtures of all of them. The descriptive term “rainbow beds” is sometimes used for this formation of many colors which include white, cream, maroon, green, red purple, and yellow.

Yes, I am trying to preserve the past. Hoping to slow the process of erosion. Now, with the “on location” portion of my project becoming history I am back to where I started. Sitting in my office in Richmond, Virginia, staring into the red, green, and blue pixels of my computer monitor cycling back and forth between windows. Just for fun I have typed the coordinates for Vernal into Google. It is still there, the same satellite imagery I saw in April. I feel reassured of my decision to devote and begin my research of Vernal by going to that specific place. With new perspective and understanding the issues and problems of preserving my past have become clearer. The newly built homes in the subdivision are no longer just structures creeping into the wilderness, they house people. Individuals who have shared stories with me. Individuals who have their own personal connections to the place. My memories are still eroding, carried away by summer thunderstorms into the arroyos and gullies that line the highway systems. Now I understand that the process is natural. Just the workings of geological time where rocks are striving to create and preserve their own memory.

From two sources

1. A Popular Guide to the Geology of Dinosaur National Monument. G.E. Untermann and B.R. Untermann Dinosaur Nature Association, 1969.
2. My Personal Journal May–November 2008.

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bread from the richmond bread man dimensions 9cm x 9cm x 6cm

this artefact needs no explanation, as to why I found it interesting.

I have found plenty of fishing lures, but this one interested me because I found it miles from a river or lake, it was underneath an oak tree. So many questions need answered. However, I think what interested me most in this little artefact is the knowledge that I’ll never know where it came from. This lure represents mystery, and I like that.

More to come soon!

Among the nicknacks and mementos in my parents house there was one that particularly interested me as a child. In fact even now this object still captivates me. That object is silver spoon. This spoon doesn’t exist in a elaborate setting of heirloom dinnerware, no it is on its own. And the spoon was used, everyday my mother told me, by my great grandmother. There is evidence of this from the patina and tarnish that extends down the handle. Once there was intricate patterning in the handle now it is barely there. But most interesting, with regard to this spoon, is the asymmetry of the actual spoon part. Half of the spoon has been ground down to about a 35° angle. Again, my mother describes this happening as a result of my my great-grandmother using her spoon to stir the same pot of mush in the same way, day after day.

I am organizing the artefacts from my trip, yes I am—to steal the sentence from Walter Benjamin’s Unpacking my library. Sand and bits of drift wood replace the worn and dusty pages in my library. a collection of itmes inanimate objects relatively small appears to be a collection of collections. Each one serving as a mnemonic device returning me to a world I once inhabitied. Some may describe this as being overly nostalgic and pherhaps their judgment is warrented for I enjoy nostalgia and in it I’m reminded of how I felt, and how I’ll feel again. Somewhere in my collection is a small pink rock taken from island park 4 years ago. I wish I had the rock now, to hold it to observe its smooth features. What strikes me most about this rock is that it has moved beyond a memory and it has risen to the level of being something worth remembering—the metamemory. This is a place reserved for only the most treasured objects. Items that shield and bury meaning. Making them extra personal even mysterious. Secrets ready for the world to see, but only coded so as not to be taken lightly.