2022 – 2026 – Janet Geib Pretti

2022 – 2026

My first post-retirement show opened in July 2020. I welcomed the COVID lockdown as an opportunity to focus on sculpture prior to the show and afterwards as an opportunity to recoup, pull back and watch the world go by. By 2022, the world was emerging from its COVID hibernation, but the mid-term election was in full swing; Russia invaded Ukraine; the Dobbs decision leaked in May; and the January 6th Committee began holding public hearings in July. Sculpture seemed irrelevant. I buried my worries in house and garden projects.

It was only after the November elections that I went back to my studio. I seem to need at least a small glimmer of hope to make art. Some pieces such as Flight emerged quickly. I had flown back to Colorado for a wedding and saw the frame of our old childhood swing set by my sister’s pond. The words and concept took shape on the flight home. Others, such as Thoughts and Prayers and Choirs Keep Singing of Freedom had scribbles of words and roots in the past. Some had working titles, but had never begun to coalesce and take shape until recent events dredged them back to the surface, prodding me to try again.

Pregnancy Painted bronze and wood, 2025. 22”x14”x19”. My dislike for mold making and preference for solid castings imposes limitations on my work. Working directly in wax over a wire armature, without the safety net of a mold, can be risky. Bronze cools and solidifies faster in thin areas potentially cutting off the flow of metal. Bronze shrinks as it cools and the areas of mass will pull molten metal from the thinner legs and neck. I was not surprised when the foundry called, only shocked at how much of a miscast it was. Her belly had drawn the metal out of her lower torso and legs, just as a fetus draws what it needs to grow from its mother. I carved the piece instead, and moved on. The miscast gathered dust in the corner for decades. My son was not planned. All through my pregnancy I sensed that his birth would be delivering us both into an unknown world and it did. As I waited for his birth, I was all too aware of how much I lacked when compared to what I thought motherhood would require. But just as he was born to learn to sit up, to crawl, to walk and to run, I learned what I needed, as I needed it. I learned to love being a mother. It is fitting that this piece did not come from the foundry whole. I had to give up my expectation of what it was going to be, to be open to new possibilities. I had to trust that I could figure it out. I had to be brave enough to try, to risk failure. I had to work at it, reworking it until it became an imperfect whole.

Thoughts and Prayers Painted bronze and wood, 2024, 18”x30”x14”.

May 4, 1970, a photo journalism student’s iconic, Pulitzer winning photo captured the attention of the nation and was forever seared into my memory. Twenty-eight Ohio National Guardsmen had fired 67 rounds in thirteen seconds, at Kent State University campus students protesting the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia and the draft. Two protesters and two bystanders watching the protest in between classes died, nine were injured. The shooting prompted the first nation-wide student strike - over 4 million students participated. May 8, a student demonstration led to the burning of Colorado State University’s Old Main building and eleven student protesters were bayoneted by the New Mexico National Guard at the University of New Mexico. May 14, city and state police confronting students on Mississippi’s Jackson State Campus, opened fire - killing two, wounding twelve. I enrolled as a freshman at Colorado State University in the fall of 1970. The void left by Old Main was a cautionary reminder of what had and could happen again. But in my junior year, the sculpture department moved out of our condemned studio into a new studio built with the insurance money from Old Main. According to the Mother Jones Mass Shooting Database, there have been 24 mass shootings at schools in the United States, 1982 through 2024 – 221 died and 249 were injured. Semiautomatic guns were used in eighteen of the shootings. Press conferences begin with, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the survivors, grieving families and community.” GoFundMe accounts are set up for medical and funeral expenses. Friends, neighbors, and complete strangers rally - to grieve, to call for an end to the violence, and sensible gun reform. With each new horror, I wonder if it will be the one that shocks us into moving beyond thoughts and prayers to action.

Choirs Keep Singing of Freedom - Painted bronze and wood, 2024, 15”x18”x26”. I have scribbled notes, written over decades, about a piece I called Black and White. The last time I tried was when Obama first ran for president. I decided it wasn’t my piece to make. But in 2020, every week seemed to bring news of another black life senselessly taken. Songs I remember from the 60’s and 70’s were once again being sung at BLM demonstrations and by church choirs -songs of freedom, overcoming and amazing grace. Banksy wrote about a piece that he made in response to police killing George Floyd: “At first, I thought I should just shut up and listen to black people about this issue. But why would I do that? It’s not their problem. It’s mine. People of color are being failed by the system. The white system. Like a broken pipe flooding the apartment of the people living downstairs, this faulty system is making their life a misery, but it’s not their job to fix it. They can’t – no-one will let them in the apartment upstairs. This is a white problem and if white people don’t fix it, someone will have to come upstairs and kick the door in.” His insight gave me permission to try again. I was born in 1952. Life magazine brought the images of the civil rights movement into my rural Colorado home. The last of the major civil rights legislation, the Fair Housing Act, passed when I was in high school. I naively thought those issues had been addressed with the stroke of a pen – now it was time to address women’s equal rights. Even though the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was never ratified, progress was made. But progress is fragile, laws and rights can be ignored, gutted, or eliminated with a stroke of a pen.

Painted bronze and wood, 2025, 15” x 12” x 24”. In 1989, our college’s in-service speaker, talked about how western society had progressed through the ages - the Agrarian Age, Industrial Age, Scientific Age, and Technology Age. He predicted a Digital Age was just emerging and would make possible an Information Age. He noted the time for ages was compressing, and between ages there was a troublesome, chaotic transition. He had charts and time-lines; he quoted research. He warned that information in the Information Age would be so readily available, from so many sources, that traditional brick and mortar schools would have to adapt. He believed that everyone would be so inundated with information and misinformation, that we would be forced into evaluating it in search of truth, in search of meaning, ushering in a new age – an Age of Meaning. He saw it as a time of endless possibilities; where people lived purposeful lives, based on informed choices. I suddenly understood that was why I made sculpture – I was trying to sort through the noise, to drill down to the essence of what was true and meaningful. I was reveling in this private epiphany when, just behind me, three tenured faculty began shouting, vehemently taking exception to his views; accusing him of subverting academics to support new age, voodoo thinking. They doubted that the computers that were just appearing on everyone’s desks would evolve into an Age, or that brick and mortar schools would ever be at risk of becoming obsolete. I had not been able to successfully finish a sculpture in six years. I returned home determined to reconsider, to remake my failures with purpose. The Digital Age and the Information Age arrived, enabling me to efficiently research and effectively edit and parse words. But l worry that the in-service speaker was too optimistic. I worry that we are trapped in an Age of Disinformation and that an Age of Meaning is not just delayed but may never come.

Painted bronze and wood, 2024, 24” x 15” x 19”. My dad’s father and older brother were graduates of the Colorado School of Mines. He was expected to follow in their footsteps, but he dreamed of being a cowboy. Dad grew up on mining sites in Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, where as the son of the mine supervisor, he was often the only child living on site. The miner’s families lived in town. His favorite memories were from the Barstow Mine, between Ouray and Silverton. His father considered himself a modern man, he tried his best to transfer dad’s fondness for animals to the wonders of machines and automobiles. Dad did delight in their wild Model T rides down the Million Dollar Highway to Ouray, terrorizing the tourists they passed along the way. But the highlight of those trips was hanging out with the blacksmith while his father did his business. When dad wasn’t allowed to have a dog, he tamed and trained Peanut, a prairie dog. When he wasn’t allowed a horse, he made do visiting and tending them at the blacksmith’s. When dad was eight, the blacksmith showed up at the mine with the needed fresh mule team for hauling out the ore and a horse. His father was given a choice – accept the horse for his son with the mules or continue working with the mules he had. Dad graduated from college with an animal husbandry degree, not an engineering degree. He spent the bulk of his working life as a banker, working his way into management from an ag loan officer. When my sister and I were old enough for 4-H, dad made sure we had horses in our lives, and in his life long after we left for college. He team roped with his best friend, the local veterinarian, as long as they both were able; and he kept work clothes and cowboy boots in the car, just in case someone was branding or fixing fences, and could use another set of hands.

Painted bronze and wood, and rocks, 2024, 12” x 12” x 19”. I was recently introduced to the concept of hefting - a process of intensely herding a flock of sheep to a place until they recognize it as home and will not willingly leave it. Once hefted they largely tend themselves - teaching their offspring the perimeters of their home, roaming free as integral members of its ecosystem. I coveted our home years before we bought it. It was a small, two-bedroom, one-bath house, sitting on a 95' x 100' corner lot. The house was U-shaped, filled with natural light. A partial, unfinished basement connected to what was originally a street level garage, under the lawn above. Previous owners had converted it into an office - we called it the bunker. I immediately claimed the basement as a workroom, the bunker was a place that morphed into what was needed - a teenager’s bedroom, classroom, guest room - until I claimed for additional workspace. The house sat high enough above the street to create the illusion of living on the side of a mountain for someone born and raised in the Colorado Rockies. It faced west overlooking a lake with a distant glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. It was in town, two blocks from the old library, but it felt more country. We were surrounded by nature instead of fences and sidewalks. Over the years, the yard and the house evolved as we had the time and money. Project by project its potential was revealed to suit our needs and dreams. Slowly but surely, I became hefted - to this place, this community.

Painted bronze, wood, fabric and found objects, 2024, 18” x 18” x 14”. Colleges have long required students to take one cultural literacy class for degree completion. In 2014, I happened upon a public radio broadcast of a lecture discussing replacing the goal of teaching cultural literacy with a goal of teaching cultural agility. A couple of years ago I scanned the internet to see how the concept had fared. There was little mention in education, but corporations were using it in workforce diversity and inclusion trainings. In today’s divisive politics, it would be labeled ‘woke,’ in need of eradication. Cultural agility is built on a recognition that everyone sees and experiences the world differently based on their experiences, values, and culture. First, we need to question and examine why we think and act the way we do. Then we need to be open and curious in our interactions with others, mindful that their differing experiences, values, and cultures shapes and influences their perceptions and actions. I have lived most of my life in rural, mostly white communities. Yet, I have needed to practice and develop these skills just as much as if I lived in a more culturally diversity city. Developing cultural agility is a mind-set, a process. It evolves over time, through chance and intentional interactions and explorations. It can enrich all our interactions with friends and foes. All it requires is a willingness to stretch beyond our comfort zones, to suspend our assumptions and biases. With practice, by listening to the richness of stories, dreams, and aspirations of others, we can begin to see, value, and build upon what we have in common.

Painted bronze and wood and found objects, 2025, 12” x 12” x 23”. Approximately 80% of Colorado’s participation falls on the western slope, while 80% of the its population lives on the eastern slope between Fort Collins and Pueblo. In 1937, Roosevelt approved the Colorado-Big Thompson Project to divert water from the western slope to the eastern slope. In 1962, Kennedy authorized the Frying Pan-Arkansas Project to divert more water to the eastern slope. Construction began in 1964. That same year, the West Divide Water Conservation District formed with my dad as a founding member. My sister and I were raised with an awareness that clean water was a finite resource - rivers were over allocated and aquifers were being depleted; both were carelessly being polluted. When some ranches had green pastures in late summer and others did not, my dad explained the haves and have-nots of water rights. When some houses in the housing development across the road had green lawns and others did not, he explained that the new well water restrictions mandated no lawn watering but had no means of being enforced. He warned us that, within our lifetimes, we would see the consequences. In 1969, the polluted Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire and in 1970, on a summer road trip, I photographed no swimming/ water unsafe signs on the shores of Lake Michigan and the banks of the Potomac River to show my dad it was already happening. But later that same year, Nixon’s executive order established the Environmental Protection Agency, giving us a bit of hope. Our small city recently instituted water restrictions, and I began collecting rainwater in an odd assortment of containers. My dad would be shaking his head, but he too would be hoping for rain - to replenish the starving Colorado River and Great Salt Lake; to douse the droughts that have made fire-fighting a year-round profession. He too would be fretting over the potential elimination of the EPA.

Painted bronze and wood, and found objects, 2025. Painted bronze and wood, and found objects, 2025. Sitting at the airport in December I realized that people watching is not as entertaining in the winter as it is in the summer. In the summer, everyone’s clothing choices and tattoos loudly proclaim their individuality. Conversations seem to be louder, more boisterous. But when winter settles in, everyone dresses in layers. They scurry to their gates to hunker down with their electronics. Only the toddlers waiving and smiling at strangers break the monotony. There is very little to set anyone apart, to give clues to who they might be, where they are from, where they are going. I have lived in the same small community for over forty years. We know a bit more about each other than passing travelers at the airport, but for the most part we live parallel lives, occasionally crossing paths and exchanging greetings. Even with close friends and family we might know the Cliff Notes of each other’s lives, but so much remains unsaid. We share the highlights and successes, but are hesitant to share our concerns, frustrations, and disappointments. I don’t share because I have already wasted too much time and energy on them and simply want to move on. I don’t share because I don’t want to be dismissed, pitied, or shamed. I don’t share to keep my worries and issues from seeping into someone else’s life. Life goes on. Everyone stays in their own lane, privately shouldering their worries and burdens, putting one foot in front of the other.

Painted bronze and wood, found objects, 2023 12" x 12" x 28" Once and only once, I answered the perfunctory question, “What do you want to be when you grow up”, with “a wise woman.” I was embarrassed and baffled by the ensuing laughter and renewed question, "But what do you want to BE when you grow up?" Having already answered the question truthfully the first time, I shrugged and mumbled, "I don't know." For years I repeated that answer, with the shrug, whenever the question came up. Shouldn’t all girls want to grow up to be wise women? My mom had been a nurse, her best friend had been a college chemistry instructor, yet they lived their adult lives as wives, mothers, and community volunteers. It didn’t seem to matter what I wanted to be - I was girl. If women worked in my town, they were nurses, teachers, bank tellers, store clerks, waitresses or maids. But my mom and her friend seemed to have a broader world view and a tolerance for differences than most of the other moms. I thought they were wise. That was something I could aspire to. In truth, wisdom is an elusive goal. It is aspirational, a journey not a destination. It is uniquely personal, an accumulation of nuggets of knowledge and insights collected over a lifetime - some purposefully sought out, other appearing unexpectedly through chance encounters, news reports, or passages in books. Each another piece of the puzzle, but never completing the puzzle. For every piece gained, there is always more to learn - a blind spot, a misconception yet to be explored.

AHA! Painted wood, 2025, 24"x24"x36" At the start of first grade, my son read (memorized) one book at a time. Every Monday he would come home with a new book and by Friday he had it mastered. After several nights of reading a book emphasizing prepositions, I pulled a book from his bookshelf, a Berenstain Bears book, Inside, Outside, Upside Down. Not having pre-read it at school, Darin struggled through the first pages before suddenly glancing over to the school book and then looking up in wonder. In short order he mastered Inside, Outside, Upside Down, every word, on every page, on the front cover, the back cover, and even the spine. He waited up to read the book to his father, he slept with it, and the next morning he raced to the bus with it. At school he skipped the playground and went directly to his classroom to scrawl his name haphazardly on the board under the Come Read with Me sign. He positioned his brightly labeled chair directly below, and did not budge until his startled teacher pulled up a chair and invited him to read. I don’t remember learning to read, but I remember learning to tie my shoe. I love those moments, the thrill of having a switch flip and a sudden, brilliant knowing illuminating what was before incomprehensible. I am addicted to those moments, continually searching for my own, vicariously reveling in nudging others towards their own aha moments. Some deliver a fleeting moment of satisfaction and accomplishment; others are a portal into a new world of possibilities and ongoing revelations.