Geomancer is a research project and body of work utilizing found clay, iron and graphic collages by artist Summer Orr.
The word "geomancy", from Late Greek geōmanteía, translates literally to "foresight by earth".
This project was greatly influenced by 8 months of living, walking and searching around the rural community of Green River, which is one town among few in the southwest that is yet to be visibly affected by extreme mega-drought, due to proximity to the Green River (a chief tributary of the dwindling Colorado River). Utilizing public documents, deep internet searches, snippets from oral histories, local clay reservoirs, photos and found metal ephemera of a bygone era, Geomancer describes the conflicted future of a gas-stop town that is often overlooked on the map. The artifacts, photos, and sculptures weave a web between similar communities built on extraction, their tenuous relationship with water in the west, and what kind of society will populate these environments in the near future as man-made reservoirs and infrastructure fail under the stress of climate chaos.
This series of work exhibited at the Moab Arts & Recreation Center in conjunction for the Moab Artwalk for the month of July, in 2022.
