One of Reanna’s installations in Montana. Sculpture park from Reanna’s internship with Patrick Dougherty. Sculpture. While at UM, Reanna realized she could easily make people uncomfortable by using installations as her primary body of work. An installation, in art terms, is when an artist transforms a space to give viewers an experience rather than the focus being on a singular object. Installation offered her the chance to make her work more evocative to allow her to talk about her issues with hearing loss and tinnitus and the resulting psychological effects. Since materials are her language, Reanna decided to use the cacophonous sounds of tinnitus in tandem with large steel wool clouds to help materialize this invisible condition. Since her issues with communication were isolating enough, Reanna wanted to challenge herself and to get her work beyond her own experience to connect with other people. She made three separate installations for her thesis exhibition dealing with depression and anxiety using weather as metaphors. The idea behind these works was to attract people to the art, because it was pretty, but to also connect with them on a shared experience. “Because depression and anxiety lack tangibility, they make you feel like you’re the only one feeling it – if you can’t prove it’s happening to you, you feel like it’s an absurd thing and therefore you can’t Reanna supervising pouring leftover copper. talk about it.” Getting away from South Dakota where she felt comfortable and safe allowed her to be more open in the ideas she wanted to pursue artistically. “I’ve never been shy about certain levels of failure. Failure is important.” After graduating with her MFA from UM, Reanna had an internship at an outdoor sculpture park, Sculpture in the Wild, located in Lincoln, MT. Each year the park hosts a worldrenowned artist who has about a month to create their work. This year Reanna had the honor of working with Patrick Dougherty, an artist who uses tree saplings to create works of art. During the internship, she worked with Patrick and the volunteers to help create his work titled, “Tree Circus” as well as leading the education program, giving lectures on land art and sculpture, giving tours, and facilitating a communitybuilt stick sculpture. As soon as her internship ended, she drove down to Crested Butte, CO to assist and participate in a community iron pour put on by one of her friends from grad school. After this, Reanna came back to South Dakota to help and participate in two more iron pours. Eventually she had to go back to work at the foundry in Sioux Falls, BronzeAge Art Casting. “Since grad school I’ve been helping to make vARTIST continued on page 18 Another installation in Montana. Slumberland is where the midwest shops for Tempur-Pedic! The Best Nights Sleep ~ For Every Body! “Highest in Customer Satisfaction with Mattresses” #1 Support, Comfort and Value –J.D. Power 2017 Mattress Satisfaction Report+ 2401 Broadway, Yankton • 605-665-3719 • slumberland.com Monday-Friday 10am-8pm, Saturday 10am-6pm, Sunday Noon-6pm HERVOICEvMAY/JUNE 2018v17