Book review

23 November 2012 | Ashland, OR -- Take an inside look at a seldom-seen Oregon wilderness: http://goo.gl/UX0ix

Volunteer Profile -- Sarah Goodchild

Sarah Goodchild, Kalmiopsis Wilderness

Name: Sarah Goodchild
Age: 26
Crews: Kalmiopsis June 2011, Kalmiopsis August 2010
Total Hrs on the trail: 130

Ashland, OR | 8 November 2012 -- Sarah Goodchild joined SMC crews two years in a row, but this year she was absent.

That's because she was busy -- making art from Manhattan's Upper West Side neighborhood. She moved there in August to pursue a Master in Fine Art degree from New York City College, where she has an art studio.

In 2010, SMC board director Allison Gilroy convinced Goodchild to join the club for a 5 day trip in the Kalmiopsis.

"I wasn't really prepared for the remoteness," Goodchild says about her experience. "I remember realizing at one point, you know, we're in a really remote location. That really terrified me."

But the Kalmiopsis Wilderness fascinated Goodchild, and in the off-season she created works inspired by the area's beauty and the physical challenges it posed.

"All of a sudden,  I wasn't thinking about getting up to work on time," she says. Goodchild was at the time working in Portland, OR for an after school art program. "I was thinking about how to get one foot in front of the other.

"The second summer, I came out for longer." Goodchild worked that year on a crew for seven days recovering Johnson Butte Trail No 1110 and Upper Chetco Trail No 1102 from years of maintenance deferments and 2002 Biscuit Fire aftermath.

"I had a fuller experience," she says.

The Kalmiopsis became a dramatic natural landscape for Goodchild to return to for inspiration. "I responded to  all the white and black colors," Goodchild notes. Those along with silver hues are her pallet's mainstays. "I've zoomed in on that experience for a lot of what I've been doing."

Echo Kalmiopsis I, 2012, detail

Which includes an abstract sculpture she's working on that portrays a picture taken from the Kalmiopsis.

After getting her masters degree in 2014, Goodchild plans to administer art programs that provide access to art for young people, as well as continue practicing. She likes living, working and studying in New York.

Goodchild has access to the area's many museums, and slowly but surely, she's making good connections, she says. "It's helped me be more experimental, but it all comes down to self-discipline."

She admits she can see why people might think the Kalmiopsis sporting its post-fire look is ugly.

"It's creepy and eerie and dark and all, and yes, I'm totally into those things. But there's also something else going on."

To see some of Sarah's art, keep updated on her blog at iseeblindspots.blogspot.com. Her art has been featured in solo and group exhibitions.