Snow artist who went viral explains inspiration for expansive drawings
A California-based snow artist is on a mission to mend mankind’s fractured ties to Mother Nature — by evoking wonder throughout her snow drawings.
It takes Sonja Hinrichsen several days and some 60 volunteers to transform expansive canvases of freshly fallen snow into sprawling design patterns that resemble crop circles.
“It’s actually kind of meditative. I want people to become more aware of the natural world, which is very precious. But we — as humans — have scarred, contaminated, and destroyed it in many places,” she said in an interview with Yahoo News. "I would like people to be aware of how important this actually is."
Hinrichsen's work recently went viral, with news outlets like Wired and Huffington Post and international sites like La Repubblica highlighting it.
Hinrichsen, originally from Germany, preserves these works of art by snapping a series of photos, so they are still around long after the snow has melted away.
Her most recent project, 2014’s "We Are the Water," re-created — in abstract form — the original flow of the Yampa River and its four tributaries in Routt County, Colo.
“Just to be out there. You hear the 'crunch, crunch, crunch' with every step. The sounds of nature, the skies,” she said, with a sense of awe. “I hope that the person who sees these photographs will sort of get this experience in a secondary way.”
It took four hours for her roughly 50 volunteers to carve out an outline of the general stream and “pay tribute to the moods of water” — whether it is quick, slow, meandering, rough or gentle.
The piece was photographed from an airplane later in the day.
"It’s ephemeral. It doesn’t leave any traces so it’s nonimpact, which I like very much about it," she said. "it only lives on in its photographic documentation."
Last year, Hinrichsen enlisted the help of more than 60 volunteers to create “Snow Drawings at Catamount Lake” over the course of three days.
The heavy, deep snow on the frozen lake made the project difficult, but she was still pleased with the results.
“Without those landscapes, the work wouldn’t be possible,” she said. “It’s a symbiosis between the artwork that I do and the land it’s being embedded into.”
Though her home base is in California, Hinrichsen has created nature works throughout the United States and Europe.
As an artist, Hinrichsen says she is particularly drawn to many environments that seem inhospitable, not just snow-covered landscapes. Wastelands, deserts and high mountains also fascinate her.
"I want to bring up awareness and consciousness of the preciousness of the natural world with these pieces," she said. "Another way to do this would be by writing an activist kind of text. But this is a much subtler way."
