Erin Elder is an artist and writer born and raised in Colorado Springs. Her research-driven projects combine fieldwork, drawing, and writing to consider how people and places affect one another.

Erin has lived in Albuquerque for most of her adult life, working as a curator, a residency coordinator, a coach for artists, and a creative project manager. She recently started a PhD program in geography at the University of New Mexico where she uses creative methods to re-story waterways as complex living beings.

Learn more about her work at: www.erinelder.com and eldergibbous.substack.com and on IG @erinelder505.

From Source to Mouth: For the State of the Watershed Summit, Erin shares elements from her recent project, From Source to Mouth: A Creative Survey of Monument Creek. As an intermittent artist-in-residence at Colorado College, Erin engaged the community in thinking deeply about the city's primary waterway. The project involved CC students and faculty as well as numerous community partners; it resulted in 55 field drawings, a 16-minute soundscape, an alternative map of the creek, and a set of oral histories from local creek stewards. The project was exhibited at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in Fall 2023 and now lives in the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum's permanent collection.