In these exquisitely rendered essays, Dodd (Archetypal Light
) explores the intersections of the arts and the natural world, often coming up with unexpected and insightful conclusions. Dodd serves as an inviting guide to everything from the ancient mammoth cave paintings of Chauvet in France to the joys of owning a wood-stove. Drawing from various sources, Dodd creates a cohesive network of connections between mediums and ideas, as in the essay “Cañonicity,” which smoothly interweaves personal reflections on the southwestern landscape with an analysis of Georgia O’Keeffe’s early paintings of that region. Dodd’s adventures and reflections often center on the desire to understand the world inhabited by our primitive ancestors. In essays such as “Aspects,” in which she searches for a mastodon cave drawing in Moab, Utah, she ponders the past with an acute melancholy. Dodd displays her English professor chops in the essay “Cold Meditations,” which contemplates the world of Beowulf
in relation to the author’s personal isolation and study of nature. Most characteristically, “In Situ” combines a stirring travelogue through Colorado with prolonged meditations on the wider meanings of art. (Sept.)
