CONVERSATIONS WITH THE LAND, 1997, series of 7 panels, photo emulsion on animal collagen, polyurethane, twine, lumber, each panel 7.5’ x 8’, installationat the Yellowstone <strong>Art</strong> <strong>Museum</strong>, Billings, MTshovels, 1999-2000, series of 30, mixed media includes: beeswax, crop grains and grasses, horsehair, photo emulsion on cloth, pigment, light installedwith coveralls, installation dimensions variable, each Shovel: 17”h x 8.5”w x 6”d, installation at the Yellowstone <strong>Art</strong> <strong>Museum</strong>, Billings, MTbeets, 2004-07, series of 32, animal collagen, artificial sinew, organic matter, resin, installation dimensions variable, suspended at 62”h, installation at the<strong>Nicolaysen</strong> <strong>Art</strong> <strong>Museum</strong>, Casper, WY10
20 Years of SculptureIn 1991, Linder presented a body of work for her MFAthesis exhibition, which partly focused on the tools andimplements of the farm. Pitchforks, hammers, shovels,and irrigation tubes were dressed with bone, sinew,leather, corn and raffia, which effectively remade themas shamanistic objects. Linder made ritualistic costumesfor these everyday farm tools, recasting theirpurpose towards the spiritual rather than their physicalfunction or labor involved in their use.In her next grouping of work that spanned 1997-2003,Linder delved into a personal response to the loss ofher family farm and the larger cultural shift from smallerfamily farms to the complex, corporate industry of agribusinessthat is the dominate model of food productionin America today. In Conversations with the Land,Tractor Hides, Shovels, and Discs, Linder created amini body of work that looks at the intersection of farming,machinery and the human. Created with collagen,beeswax and resin, Linder also used a photo emulsionprocess to affix different images of farming, farm equipment,plants, crops and human attributes into theseworks. Conversations with the Land presents up to sevenlarge vertical bolts of animal collagen that hang fromrods like curtains or drying hides. On these wrinkled,golden and translucent surfaces are ghostly imagesfrom farm life that hint at loss and memory. <strong>The</strong> use ofcollagen as a surface lends itself to being thought of asa literal skin or parchment, w<strong>here</strong> life experience is setdown on paper and on the body in memories, diaries,experiences and thoughts. Linder’s collagen TractorHides plays with this same idea, but also melds the imprintof machinery with the promise of rebirth and newlife as she turns these hides on their heads by makingthem vertical and very much akin to fragile cocoons.She also opens up the idea of the place of machineryin the life cycle by allowing the tractors to renew andgive life in this vertical stance. In Discs, Linder choosesresin, grasses, horsehair and dirt to humanize the ferocioustractor discs, while also making it a statementabout the circular cycle of life and the efficiency and interdependencyof nature and ecology in general. Lastly,in Shovels, Linder casts shovels in gorgeous, tactilebeeswax and imprints photographs of grasses and thehuman body to create a hybrid tool that is but one elementin the sequence of farming, inseparable from thedirt it digs and the humans who wield it. She also refersback to the incessant labor of the bees who create thematerial for these new shovels, which also connects tothe effort of humans who work the tool.With much of her sculpture, Linder plays with presenceand absence, weight and transparency, mass and light,physicality and memory. Gloves, like Shovels, carrieswith it the presence of the human in the poignant andunexpected shapes that remain after the hand is goneand the labor done. <strong>The</strong> amount of work completedwith these gloves is astounding as they are rubbedraw to a sheen that only comes from countless hoursof friction leaving holes in the fingers w<strong>here</strong> the leatherhas worn through. As with much of her work, Lindercomes back to this idea of skin and protection againand again. Gloves is a skin within a skin w<strong>here</strong> we seethe real, physical imprint and impact of farm labor andwork on the body.In another subset of her body of work, Linder turnsher attention to the grasses, crops, tree branches andbones left behind on the prairie. In Beets, she createsfull-scale replicas of sugar beets and their long rootsystems out of collagen and resin. <strong>The</strong>y hang suspendedlike little alien pods, their full structure and supporton display. Even in this mode of exhibition, t<strong>here</strong> is aprotective element that is revealed as they are fully exposed,out in the open, and vulnerable. In Wheat, Linderworks with leather, resin, and grass to form a larger versionof a wheat stalk suspended from the ceiling. In thismoving artwork, she forms leather onto each kernel asa protective mechanism. In today’s culture of farming,crops are made to grow w<strong>here</strong> they normally wouldn’texist as is the case with wheat on the high plains. <strong>The</strong>ymust endure everything from searing, scouring wind,to drenching microbursts, to the hottest sun and11
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