Author: Sudeith

Story in the Telluride Watch Newspaper about Kevin Sudeith’s Petroglyphs

Marta Tarbull wrote a story about the two petroglyph panels I carved in July in Telluride, Co.

Sudeith’s fascination with petroglyphs began as a boy, canoeing in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota, which soon led to his discovery of “pictographs of moose and canoes and Xs” painted into the rocks along the lakes, all carefully recorded in a journal.
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And while his petroglyphs today document relatively high-tech industries – oil frac’ing and agribusiness in North Dakota; sheep- and horse-ranching and elk-hunting in Colorado (and all the attendant vehicles) – his work ultimately suggests that more things change, the more they stay the same.

Telluride, CO

When I was here in Telluride during the financial crisis in September 2008, I began a carving a panel at about 9000 feet above sea level. It is located several switchbacks up the road from the patron’s ranch house on a sheep trail. It took a week of hiking to find two suitable sites to make petroglyphs. In 2008 I began work on the more remote and less “architecturally” significant panel. I saved the the more substantial site until I had more time to work, like now.

The panel I began in 2008 featured primarily technological motifs: airplanes, hot air baloons, helicopter, space shuttle (as well as a large bear since this is the Hidden Bear Ranch). Upon reflection it felt silly not to depict local subjects like cattle ranching as well as local fauna and game, so this year have commenced the Second Site featuring cowboys, deer, elk, pickups, campers, and cattle. The images ate the Second Site are also geared to the patron specifically: their pickup, their camper, their six wheeler.

New carving at the Second Site:

Carving from 2008 as I found it in 2010:

Kenmare News Story About Kevin Sudeith’s Petroglyphs

As I was leaving Salt Lake City last week, I received a voicemail from my host in Kenmare, ND. He said he liked one carving so well that he took his front end loader and moved it to his yard. He also said that the Kenmare News had run a story about me and my carvings.

One of Sudeith’s goals for the project is to tell the story of a particular family in a particular place, using images related to American technology. “It’s a way to honor ancestors and to illustrate the broader history of the area,” he said. “The people here were coming from Scandinavia and took up wheat farming, and then there have been all these technological changes in farming.”

To put it another way, by telling the specific story of a single family one can tell a broader story of America and the history of technology.