his past summer I spent over a month with Signal Fire's Wide Open Studios summer immersion program, a kind of activist / wilderness study / artist residency that ventures out onto wild lands backpacking or establishing a basecamp from which to work from. We traversed the Wallowas, Bitterroots and Pioneer Range spanning across Oregon, Idaho and Montana. Often, we had to change hiking routes and trip plans because of the many fires raging that those ranges. We were challenged with with daily creative projects, deep plays and reading assignments to inform our sense of place and art practice.