By Shannon Conley

42” by 50”

The plains often get a bad rap for being boring from those of us who consider ourselves mountain folk. But beneath the surface are literal and metaphorical fractures and fissures. A walk through the plains turns up unexpected ravines, delightful pockets of animal and plant life, as well as human-inspired contentiousness. Probing a little deeper reveals the often conflicting interests of those who want to extracting fossil fuels, those who want to invest in alternative energy sources like windmills and solar panels, those providing food on farms.

Photo by Mike Cox