Painting With Soil

When Karen Vaughan runs the trails through the rolling sagebrush just east of her home in Laramie, Wyoming, she often carries a glue stick and sketchbook. While other runners might notice the sharp scent of sage or peaks of the Snowy Range rising in the distance, Vaughan pays attention to something arguably less majestic: the dirt beneath her feet. When she needs a break or sees an intriguing patch of soil, she’ll pause, kneel, and rub a circle of glue on a blank piece of paper. Then she’ll press the page glue-side down onto the ground, lifting a circle of soil—and with it, a memory of that particular moment, in that particular place.

For Vaughan, a soil scientist at the University of Wyoming, soil captures both her personal memories and the broader geologic, historic, and environmental story of a place. Running through the prairie beneath the Snowy Range, for example, the soils whisper of the ancient seabeds that used to cover this