Wallows
Were there buffalo,
or did I dream them?
I see them now
On quick-run trips.
But were they there,
south of the house,
when I was young?
Or, were they alive
in stories my parents told?
All I know for sure is
that the hollows remain,
the shapes made by
dust-bathing bison.
Depressions grassed over
— ghostly evidence.


Concurrently in the Delmar Gallery:
Elements: The Art of Textile Collage

"Memory—as far-reaching as a prairie horizon and as sharp and personal as warm earth beneath bare feet.  Details of childhood and of prairies and of growing up under an endless sky are at once sharp and waning.  Creating work based on reverence for land and for individuals who roamed, or owned, or revered the land means revisiting, reinterpreting, and reinventing memory.  I find that my having been on that land is now of historical interest to those remaining, a reality I had not foreseen.  I’ve been away too long to still be a part of that land even though it will always be a part of me.  My work deals with memory, both real and invented, and land, both real and imagined. It suggests an impressionistic, dream-like landscape—not the reality seen daily by those still working the land."
--Pat Owoc