Be a part of Steamboat's 2016 snow drawings!

Join us for a talk, slideshow and chance to meet our artist-in-residence, Sonja Hinrichsen, who will create two January snow drawings on the Steamboat Springs landscape assisted by volunteers from the local community. This is the time to get signed up and learn about all the details for participating in both of the 2016 snow drawings. 

A Lake Catamount snow drawing will be created Saturday & Sunday, Jan. 9-10, 2016.  Check out photos of the 2013 Lake Catamount installation.

A snow drawing on the haymeadows between The Nature Conservancy's Carpenter Ranch and the Yampa Valley Regional airport in Hayden will be Saturday & Sunday, Jan. 16-17, 2016. Check out photos of Sonja Hinrichsen's 2011 solo installation on the Carpenter Ranch.

Sign up and help create a large, landscape-scale work of community art!
Note: Artists will need their own snowshoes, snacks and water -- and plan to dress for changing winter weather conditions.

5-7 p.m. ~ Volunteer artists can sign-up in person in Library Hall.

6 p.m. ~  All about snow drawings: a half-hour slideshow and Q&A with artist Sonja Hinrichsen

Sign up in advance!
Contact Adult Programs Coordinator Jennie Lay at jlay@steamboatlibrary.org with your name, phone number, and dates you want to commit to working on the Lake Catamount and/or Hayden airport haymeadows snow drawings. Volunteer artists are urged to stop by the Snow Drawing Info Session regardless of having signed up in advance. Sonja will share the vision and process with fellow artists, and final logistics for carpools, places to rent snowshoes, etc., will be discussed.

What's a snow drawing?
Check out this video of the community artists at work during 2012 on Rabbit Ears Pass...

About the artist

Sonja Hinrichsen is an environmental artist who first came to Steamboat Springs in 2010 via a Colorado Art Ranch residency at The Nature Conservancy's Carpenter Ranch. She returned during winter 2012 for a series of community snow drawings on Rabbit Ears Pass  that received national and international attention, then again in 2013 and 2014 for widely recognized snow drawing installations on Lake Catamount.

An excerpt from Sonja Hinrichsen's artist statement...

“Snow Drawings” is an ongoing project where I “draw” large designs in the environment by walking lines into fresh snow surfaces with snowshoes. Ideal “canvases” are deforested areas and frozen lakes. The finished pieces are ephemeral. While they take hours to create, their duration is entirely unpredictable.  Sometimes they are coated over by new snow shortly after completion.

I began this project during an artist residency in Snowmass Village in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Out of play I started designing patterns in my mind, which I then transferred onto the snow. My designs have since become more elaborate and refined, and I have continued this project in other landscapes across the USA.

In February 2012 I worked with community volunteers from Steamboat Springs, Colorado. This enabled me to create monumental pieces. During two community events that combined art-making and fun outdoor winter activity in a stunning landscape at Rabbit Ears Pass in the Western Colorado Mountains, we created large drawings that could only be seen from the air in their entirety – and only for a few days. Volunteers greatly enjoyed their partaking in these outdoor art-making events.

As an environmentalist it is important to me that my interventions in nature are subtle and leave no lasting traces. I am not interested in creating lasting artworks, as I believe that our world is over-saturated with man-made products. I like to unfold my work into large immersive experiences, however I prefer that it live on in its documentation only, and – hopefully – in the memories of my audiences as well as those who participate in the creative effort.

I hope that “Snow Drawings” accentuates the beauty and uniqueness of the natural environment, and thus inspires awe and appreciation for nature – especially as modern society becomes increasingly disconnected from the natural world.

The Community Snow Drawings are sponsored by Catamount Ranch & Club, The Nature Conservancy's Carpenter Ranch, Bud Werner Memorial Library and pilot Jack Dysart.