Ridgefield artist Jennifer Williams needed a lot of maps.
Luckily, after explaining her purpose, she left the Gifford Pinchot National Forest headquarters with a box of wilderness maps. They would become the foundation for her latest collaboration with longtime friend, Oregon science writer Valerie Rapp. Their show “Beyond the Boundaries” celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act.
“She was writing and I was painting, our art forms would cross back and forth and inspire each other,” Williams said. The show’s 14 paintings are displayed next to Rapp’s text, which creates a flow between images and text, said Williams. In addition to the maps, Williams included Rapp’s words, essays and hand-written notes into each painting.
The act itself contains its own inspiring words; defining wilderness as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” Signed into law on Sept. 3, 1964, it currently protects close to 110 million acres of natural areas across the United States.
“Each one of us can live our own wilderness story, unfolding as we hike trails, cross streams, climb ridges,” Rapp wrote for the exhibit. “When wilderness becomes part of our personal stories, we are more likely to protect wilderness for all the values it offers, and in all the ways it needs protecting.”
