A bowl of water acts as both the physical and metaphoric lens with which to consider water concerns in arid environments. The colorful, ancient striped soils of the Painted Desert were deposited when this site was a vegetated floodplain. The dunes of White Sands National Monument, composed of a salt mineral that crystallizes during evaporation, are likewise evidence of radical, if epic, climate change. Water refracts light inverting each landscape. The pictures are thus reminders that all images entering the eye or the camera enter upside down. This inversion implies that no image is objective. Every image seen is a creative act subject to interpretation within our value-laden, water-filled bodies. The lenses imply that “inside” and “outside” are in dialogue, not dichotomy.
