USU’s MUSEUM DISPLAYS PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARY PECK: “AWAY
OUT OVER EVERYTHING: THE OLYMPIC PENINSULA AND THE ELWHA RIVER”
LOGAN — The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, located on the campus
of Utah State University, Logan, announces the exhibition of photographs
by Mary Peck. The exhibition, organized by the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum
of Art, is selected from Peck’s most recent body of work inspired
by the landscape and wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. It features
30 wide format photographs that capture the mystery of the land and touches
on ever poignant issues of land management and conservation of nature,
said Victoria Rowe, museum director.
“Away Out Over Everything: The Olympic Peninsula and the Elwha River”
will be on exhibit from April 5-June 30, 2006.
Peck’s photographs are inspired by long walks and extended backcountry
trips on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.
“Through her large format photography, Peck describes the majesty
of the ancient forest and flowing streams and captures the changing attitudes
toward the use and preservation of land and water in the West through
her contrasting imagery of clear cut and massive dams,” said Rowe.
“There are different ways of being in the woods,” Peck said
of her work. ”Staying there over a period of days or weeks allows
me to find an inner quiet and a chance to interact with all I see. At
some point something changes. I become a participant, a part of the fluidity
and change that is all around me. I’m no longer separate.”
“For more than a decade, photographer Mary Peck has immersed herself
in this landscape,” said poet Tim McNulty. “She is drawn to
the large river valleys, the Elwha, Hoh, and Queets as well as the wilderness
coast, places where the grand cycles of weather, hydrologic exchange and
geologic process are most vivid. Her approach is less to document the
land than to experience herself as part of its living systems.”
The exhibition is accompanied by the recently published book, “Away
Out Over Everything: The Olympic Peninsula and the Elwha River.”
The book, published by Stanford University Press (2004), includes an essay
by Charles Wilkinson.
A graduate of Utah State University in 1975, Peck has photographed landscapes
in various parts of the world for more than 30 years. Her work has been
exhibited, and her photographs are held in many collections throughout
the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Denver Art
Museum and the Amon Carter Museum. She is the principal author of “Chaco
Canyon: A Center and Its World,” and is completing work on a book
of photographs from Bhutan. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula.
For more information or to schedule a tour of the museum, call (435) 797-0165.
The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art is located on the USU campus at
650 North 1100 East, Logan, Utah, 84322, (435) 797-0163; fax (435) 7978-3423.
Information is available at the museum’s Web site, http://www.artmuseum.usu.edu.
The museum is open Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.;
Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, noon-4 p.m. The museum is closed
Sundays, Mondays and holidays. Admission is free. The museum is accessible
to persons with disabilities.
Parking for the museum is available in lot “C3” to the west
of the museum. The parking fee in this area is $6 ($3 will be refunded
if parked for two hours or less). Parking is free after 3:45 p.m. and
on weekends. Parking is also available in the USU Parking Terrace, located
near the Taggart Student Center for $1.50/hour ($7.50/day maximum). Free
parking after 2 p.m. is available at lot “B,” located at the
corner of 700 North and 1200 East (by Aggie Ice Cream).
March 31, 2006
Contact and writer: Deb Banerjee (435) 797-8207
