Students travel to rural Eastern Oregon for creative fieldwork

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Students of ART 360/460 Creative Field Work - Creative Desert

By Colin Bowyer, Communications Manager - April 30, 2025

Over summer 2024, 18 students in disciplines from across campus traveled to remote Lake County, Oregon, for an unique experiential learning course, Creative Field Work - Creative Desert (ART 360/460). The five day excursion led by School of Visual, Performing, and Design Arts senior instructors Andrew Myers and Michael Boonstra, invited students to engage in intensive site-based creative research, collecting and creating art informed by their individual and collective experiences in the high Oregon desert.

“One of the formative questions we asked ourselves when designing our Creative Field Work programming was ‘what does an art program at a land-grant university look like?’” said Boonstra. “This class is based on the students’ observations and interpretations of what they see, hear, and feel in this extraordinary environment. During the trip, each student brought their own aesthetic sensibility to the cohort but were also informed by their shared experience of place.”

The class was based at Playa Center for Art and Science on the edge of Summer Lake, but over the five days, students traveled to surrounding locations of environmental and cultural significance, including Paisley Caves, Lake Abert, and recent wildfire burn scars. Exploring the varied landscapes and ecosystems not only allowed students to grasp the geologic history of the region, but they also considered the history of human interaction with the landscape and the various connections between those aspects of the place.

Some of the oldest evidence of human habitation in Oregon can be found in Lake County. Lake Abert is a major stop for migratory birds and was once part of a large inland lake called Lake Chewaucan which also included the Summer Lake area. People have lived in this area for over 14,000 years at times when it was much wetter and verdant. Now, Lake County is one of the least populated counties in Oregon, with a density of one person per square mile, the county’s eight thousand square miles consists mostly of agriculture and ranching.   

“Humans have left their own marks and scars on the landscape,” said Myers. “We wanted students to notice, observe, and collect what they’re experiencing. In the simplest way to put it, ‘what are you seeing? What more is there?’”  

Each evening students returned to the cabins at Playa and through facilitated discussions shared their observations amongst each other. Joining the class was visiting artist Madelaine Corbin, ‘17, who specializes in fiber and natural dyeing. During an evening at Playa, Corbin held a natural pigment making workshop with the students, utilizing flowers, roots, and leaves to create pigments for students to use in their own art creations.

“Even on the edge of the Great Basin, color is everywhere,” said Corbin. “Using this small part of Oregon as our laboratory and studio, students got to experience color in a whole new way and apply it to their own contemplations. It was incredible to see what was created.” 

The type of creative field research produced was unique to each student, which included sketches, writing, photography, and more. Coupled with their written reflections from each day, students turned in their inventive collections of observations and site-based creations at the end of the course.  

“It is always surprising to see what was turned in,” said Myers. “Not all of our students have a background in studio art, but the way each student worked in their own passions and academic interests was inspiring.”

“What was most rewarding to see were the connections the students built with each other over the course of the week,” said Boonstra. “Andy and I really act as facilitators for our Creative Field Work courses, and without digital access students began to look at the world a little differently. Their sensory experiences take over and inform their creative process.”

Creative Desert is the second Creative Field Work course offered to undergraduate students by Myers and Boonstra. Creative Coast has taken students to Cape Perpetua each summer since 2018 for a five day site-based excursion. Creative Coast will be offered again in summer 2025 and Myers and Boonstra will take students to the desert again in the fall extension term in September, 2025.