In 2018, I created an installation entitled Encircling Vastness in Volland, Kansas. In preparation, I became enthralled by the history of that state and how it had become the geographical center of the contiguous United States. Kansas takes its name from the Kaw nation and played a pivotal role in western expansion and the destiny of how this country was manifested.

Even before statehood, Kansas was the axis of the United States both socially and politically. Beginning in 1825, the Kansa was a frontier land on which Indian tribes were forcibly relocated. Through the Indian Removal Act of 1830, signed into law by Andrew Jackson, the Kansa officially became Indian Territory.

The Oregon and the Santa Fe Trails began just across the western border of the United States in Independence, Missouri, and then cut across the Kansa deep into the newly acquired lands of the Oregon Country and the Mexican Cession. In 1854, the Kansas - Nebraska Act became law, allowing white settlers to migrate into the Territory. This act precipitated the start of the American Civil War through a border war known as Bloody Kansas.

On January 29, 1961, Kansas was admitted into the Union as a free state. In 1862, the Homestead Act became law. This act encouraged Euorpean-Americans to immigrate to and become citizens of the United States by moving onto native Kaw lands and othere newly formed tribal reservations. Indigenous cultures were once again forced from their land and treaties became non-existent. The destiny of the western United States was being made manifest by literally stealing large swaths of land and forcibly removing Native people from those lands.

It is because of the history of how this country was manifested - through genocide and the stain of slavery - that I have been unable to pledge allegiance to the flag or to the country for which it stands. My allegiance has been to this Earth on which I stand. Like the form seen in Expanding Home/Place, my arms extend open as a V-shape. I desire that we open ourselves to the imagination needed for all of us to be part of a global world community that includes all peoples, all fauna, all flora: all sisters and brothers as sentient beings with individual spirits. We are all interdependent. 

Each day, the great Sun rises and moves across Earth, its largeness passing through the land and through our bodies as a quiet example of how to give and sustain life, expanding our home, our place, for all.