Rivers Run Through Us, a collaboration with artist Bobbe Besold and poet Valerie Martinez, is a community engagement that utilizes art to change minds, hearts, and actions. Artists draw lines; we did ours by walking the whole length of the river (54 miles over five days from 12,000 ft. to 6,000 ft.) before we could pretend to know the subject who had called us to speak on her behalf. Our heArts responded to the Santa Fe River, the river watershed, and the people and communities who live along the waterway.

 

In 2012, Rivers Run Through Us allowed me to walk to the Rio Grande River. It turned out to be the realization of the vision I had years ago during my initial performance, The Great Cleansing of the Rio Grande, but had never completed since I began my art pilgrimage in the Great River’s tributary, the Santa Fe River.

 

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.

— Norman McLean