Bears Ears: Views from a Sacred Land
By Stephen E. Strom, with Introduction by Rebecca Robinson and Introductory Poem by Joy Harjo
George F. Thompson Publishing
240 pp., 2018
The singular beauty of Bears Ears country in all seasons.
On December 28, 2016, President Barack Obama acted to protect nearly 1.4 million acres in southeastern Utah as the Bears Ears National Monument. The monument preserves a landscape of unsurpassed beauty, filled with more than 100,000 Native American archaeological sites, some dating back more than two millennia. For the first time, tribes who look to Bears Ears for spiritual and material sustenance worked collaboratively with federal agencies to set policies for managing the monument.
The photographs in Bears Ears: Views from a Sacred Land capture the singular beauty of Bears Ears country in all seasons, its textural subtleties portrayed alongside the drama of expansive landscapes and skies, deep canyons, spires, and towering mesas. To photographer Stephen E. Strom’s sensitive eyes, a scrub oak on a hillside or a pattern in windswept sand is as essential to capturing the spirit of the landscape as the region’s most iconic vistas. In seeing red-rock country through his lens, viewers can begin to discover the remarkable diversity, seductive power, and disarming complexity of Bears Ears’ sacred lands.
Strom’s photographs convey what so many have fought to preserve for so long. Like the land itself, they evince the full spectrum of emotional responses: exhilaration and disorientation, contemplation and serenity, passion and gratitude for the wild places and archeological treasures that now belong to all Americans. Rebecca Robinson’s informative essay provides historical context for how the national monument came to be.
Years from now, this book may serve as either a celebration of the foresight of visionary leaders, from Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Barack Obama who have set aside lands such as Bears Ears, or as an elegy for what was lost.
PRAISE FOR BEARS EARS: VIEWS FROM A SACRED LAND
Strom celebrates the universal beauty of line, color, and pattern and simultaneously situates it within a distinct landscape. . . . [His] photography creates timeless and abstract compositions that make visible the effects of universal geologic forces.
— Rebecca A. Senf, Chief Curator, Center for Creative Photography, and Norton Family Curator, Phoenix Museum of Art
Stunning mesas, secluded canyons and sacred sites leap from the pages of this colorful tribute by photographer Stephen Strom. Bears Ears: Views from a Sacred Land celebrates the landscape and urges its preservation for future generations.
— High Country News
Bears Ears: Views from a Sacred Land is a visual and literary introduction to this singular landscape, with a thorough textual tour of its social and geological history alongside Strom’s dazzling color photographs and a prayer-poem by Joy Harjo.
— Rachel Jagareski, “Forward,” 2018 Indie Finalist
Stephen E. Strom has spent forty-five years as a research astronomer after receiving undergraduate and graduate degrees in astronomy from Harvard. He began photographing in 1978, after studying the history of photography and silver and nonsilver photography at the University of Arizona. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and is held in several permanent collections, including the Center for Creative Photography and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. His photography complements poems and essays in six books published by the University of Arizona Press: Secrets from the Center of the World, Sonoita Plain, Tseyi / Deep in the Rock, Earth and Mars: A Reflection, Voices from Bears Ears: Seeking Common Ground on Sacred Land, and The Greater San Rafael Swell: Honoring Tradition and Preserving Storied Lands. He has also published Death Valley: Painted Light, Tidal Rhythms, Bears Ears: Views from a Sacred Land, This Desert Hides Nothing, and Earth Forms.
Rebecca Robinson is a Portland, Oregon–based writer. Her work has been widely published, and she has received numerous awards for her work in print, radio, and online media.
Joy Harjo (Mvskoke/Creek) is an internationally known poet, writer, and musician and was named United States Poet Laureate in 2019. She has published ten books of poetry and two children’s books.
