Gretchen Ernster Henderson's Books

Life in the Tar Seeps

A Spiraling Ecology from a Dying Sea

By: Gretchen Ernster Henderson

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Life in the Tar Seeps

A Spiraling Ecology from a Dying Sea

By: Gretchen Ernster Henderson

At Great Salt Lake, near Robert Smithson’s iconic earthwork Spiral Jetty, a motley crew of scientists walks the mudflats to study fossils in the making. This reputedly dead sea is home to tar seeps, pools of raw oil (nicknamed ‘death traps’) that act as a preservative, encasing organisms as they were in life. In this spare landscape, an intricate web of life unfurls. Halophiles―salt-hungry microorganisms―tint the brackish water pink and orange; crystals of gypsum stud the ground, glistening underfoot; and pelicans and other migratory birds stop for a crucial rest. Barn owls and seagulls flirt with their prey around the seeping constellations, sometimes falling prey to the oil themselves. Gretchen Henderson came to the tar seeps, a kind of natural asphalt, after recovering from being hit by a car as she walked in a crosswalk―a manmade asphalt. Like the spiraling artwork that made Great Salt Lake’s north shore famous, Henderson’s associations of life and death, degeneration and regeneration, and injury and healing coalesced. As she reexamined pressing issues that this delicate area revealed about the climate crisis, her sense of ecology spiraled into other ways of perceiving the lake’s entangled lives. How do we move beyond narrow concepts of wounded and healed, the beautiful and the ugly, to care for ecosystems that evolve over time? How do we confront our vulnerability to recognize kindred dynamics in our living planet? Through shifting lake levels, bird migrations, microbial studies, environmental arts, and cultural histories shaped by indigenous knowledges and colonial legacies, Life in the Tar Seeps contemplates the ways that others have understood this body of water, enlivening more than this region alone. As Henderson witnesses scientists, arts curators, land managers, and students working collaboratively to steward a challenging place, she grows to see the lake not as dead but as a watershed for shifting perceptions of any overlooked place, offering a meditation on environmental healing across the planet. Henderson interweaves her journey with her own vivid photographs of tar seeps and pelican death assemblages, historic maps and contemporary art, as a wayfinding guide for exploring places of our own.

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Page Count

230

Publisher

Trinity University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1595342745

ISBN 13

9781595342744

Life in the Tar Seeps

A Spiraling Ecology from a Dying Sea

By: Gretchen Ernster Henderson

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Life in the Tar Seeps

A Spiraling Ecology from a Dying Sea

By: Gretchen Ernster Henderson

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

230

Publisher

Trinity University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1595342745

ISBN 13

9781595342744

Ugliness

A Cultural History

By: Gretchen E. Henderson

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Ugliness

A Cultural History

By: Gretchen E. Henderson

Ugly as sin, the ugly duckling—or maybe you fell out of the ugly tree? Let’s face it, we’ve all used the word “ugly” to describe someone we’ve seen—hopefully just in our private thoughts—but have we ever considered how slippery the term can be, indicating anything from the slightly unsightly to the downright revolting? What really lurks behind this most favored insult? In this actually beautiful book, Gretchen E. Henderson casts an unfazed gaze at ugliness, tracing its long-standing grasp on our cultural imagination and highlighting all the peculiar ways it has attracted us to its repulsion. Henderson explores the ways we have perceived ugliness throughout history, from ancient Roman feasts to medieval grotesque gargoyles, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to the Nazi Exhibition of Degenerate Art. Covering literature, art, music, and even the cutest possible incarnation of the term—Uglydolls—she reveals how ugliness has long posed a challenge to aesthetics and taste. She moves beyond the traditional philosophic argument that simply places ugliness in opposition to beauty in order to dismantle just what we mean when we say “ugly.” Following ugly things wherever they have trod, she traverses continents and centuries to delineate the changing map of ugliness and the profound effects it has had on the public imagination, littering her path with one fascinating tidbit after another. Lovingly illustrated with the foulest images from art, history, and culture, Ugliness offers an oddly refreshing perspective, going past the surface to ask what “ugly” truly is, even as its meaning continues to shift.

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Page Count

242

Publisher

Reaktion Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1780235607

ISBN 13

9781780235608

Book's by Gretchen Ernster Henderson

Life in the Tar Seeps

Life in the Tar Seeps

Life in the Tar Seeps

Life in the Tar Seeps

Ugliness

Ugliness

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