On The Edge: The Wild West

The William Scott Gallery Opening August 5, 2022
Artist Reception 7-9pm

In this 2022 exhibit, Dakota X will present work from the series Home on the Strange: In Search of The Salton Sea, The Slabs: The Last Free Place in America, Back of Beyond.

“we must be rooted in the absence of a place”
By Nicky Sa-eun Schildkraut
Poems inspired by the paintings of DAKOTA X from the original series "Back of Beyond".

we must be rooted
in not remembering like this desert will not
remember the scattered
bandits and pioneers adrift
in clapboard cabins and along stray horses

because what we need, we have
already lost, yellowed
in photographs, hinted by paintings

of an other-land, not quite a wild,
wild West or vintage American dream
but an other-field of
the soft giving up to edge

these words, by an exile herself,
“we must be rooted in the absence of a place”
reminding us to stay longer,
because we keep
what we cannot keep.