Hikmet Sidney Loe

Born and raised on the east coast, Hikmet Sidney Loe fell in love with the arid desert lands of Utah and the environs of Great Salt Lake. She is an artist, writer, and teacher whose work draws inspiration from the smaller patterns found in the larger environment and from the changeable nature of land, water, and sky. Her work examines the changeable nature of the earth and addresses our perceptual and cultural constructs of the land.

She is the author of The Spiral Jetty Encyclo: Exploring Robert Smithson's Earthwork through Time and Place (2017), the first book in a new series devoted to our cultural and regional understanding of Land art from the 1960s and 1970s.

CURRENT PROJECTS | UPCOMING EVENTS

Please join me on August 20, 7pm MST, as I join a panel discussion led by Andrew Shaw on SLC Arts Council's current exhibition, Myth and Memory. Link to the discussion under exhibition information at slcarts.org

A film by American artist Nancy Holt (1938-2014), previously thought to be lost, was recently found by Holt/Smithson Foundation staff. The short film (less than ten minutes) elucidates Holt's interests in landscape, vision, and viewer engagement.

My review of the film, published by Hyperallergic, is found here.

American artist Robert Smithson's monumental earthwork Spiral Jetty was created in April, 1970. My article commemorating the fifty year anniversary of this work is in FRIENDS of Great Salt Lake's newsletter, accessible at www.fogsl.org

The Spiral Jetty Encyclo: Exploring Robert Smithson's Earthwork through Time and Place (2017)

Awards

Hikmet Sidney Loe’s “The Spiral Jetty Encyclo” Wins the 15 Bytes Book Award for Art Book

The Spiral Jetty Encylco: Exploring Robert Smithson's Earthwork through Time and Place is shortlisted by Utah Historical Society in consideration of its annual Utah Book Award

Select Book Readings and Events

2019
Keynote speaker, 47th Annual ARLIS/NA Conference
Land Art Symposium, UNLV Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art
Fulbright Lecture, Westminster College
Book Reading, Southern Utah University
2018
Friends of the Marriott Library, Sunday Afternoon Books and Authors
Panel, 66th Annual Utah History Conference
Land Art Symposium, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Invited speaker, West Texas A&M University

Book Reception, Interviews, and Reviews

Encycloing the Jetty: Hikmet Sidney Loe Meanders through Robert Smithson's Earthwork, 15 Bytes
VISITINGS, an interview series by Alan Nakagawa
Interview with Sean Means, Salt Lake Tribune
KSL-TV, "Spiral Jetty: An artist's giant, lonely, eerie canvas"
High Country News, "The Cyclone in the Great Salt Lake"
The Center for Land Use Interpretation, Book Review

Book chapter on teaching art history in the Utah Humanities Venture Program

"Hope, Heart, and the Humanities tells how Venture, a free, interdisciplinary college humanities course inspired by the national Clemente Course, has helped open doors for hundreds of students who, for various reasons, faced barriers to attending college. This course has given them the knowledge, confidence, and power to rechart their lives." This book was published Fall 2016 by The University of Utah Press, edited by Jean Cheney and L. Jackson Newell with Hikmet Sidney Loe, Jeff Metcalf, and Bridget M. Newell. For book information, click here.

Presented biannually at the Great Salt Lake Issues Forum, the Friend of the Lake Award "is given to a person, organization, or business performing outstanding work in education, research and/or advocacy to benefit Great Salt Lake." It was my honor to receive this award during the 2014 Great Salt Lake Issues Forum.

As a long-time observer of Great Salt Lake, and scholar of the earthworks that are part of its landscape, my interview is part of this oral history project.