BOARD MEMBER PROFILE
NILES RITTER
Once upon a time there was a math professor who was very smart, but realized one sad day (while staring at a blackboard with chalk in hand) that though he could do this the rest of his life, he wouldn't be happy. He remembered being happy, back when he was a kid solving puzzles and when he was in college doing physics homework, in between ballroom and Latin dance classes. Did he make a mistake somewhere? Or was this not a matter of reason and logic?
He went to work for JPL/NASA, where far-flung robot eyes in the frozen outer regions of the solar system returned startling pictures of blue methane volcanoes on Saturn's moons. He sat at a desk where people would come in with problems that a mathematician might be able to help solve. He did.
For ten years he was happy, but still became restless.
He got a job at a software company to pay the bills, but also began to explore the world. He traveled, read books, played guitar, joined a writer's group and began work on a novel about mathematics and music. Sometimes he would go on road trips through the southwest, where he discovered the ineffable place called Zion. He also met Gigi, the love of his life, who suggested one day that Zion might be a more pleasant place to live than smoggy Los Angeles. It was, and several years and the invention of telecommuting later, they did.
He now lives with Gigi, on a mesa somewhere in the early Triassic on the western margins of the ancient supercontinent of Pangea, in a town named after a river under a sky where the Milky Way glows. A couple of times a week they like to drive about 40 million years up Highway 9 to eat at the Pizza Noodle and gaze up at the wild red Jurassic before heading out to attend a concert or a book club discussion where folks like them are often recruited to become Z-Arts co-chairs. He is now busier than he has ever been.
And he is happy.
Article by: Olu Adeyanju
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MEMBER PROJECT:
"SOUTHERN PAIUTES: A PORTRAIT"
Logan Hebner & Michael Plyler
How did the idea for this project, and subsequent book, come about?
Michael: Logan and I had worked together on a commissioned project for the St. George Art Museum entitled "Working Wonders." This started us down this path of an interview and a portrait. The Paiutes specifically were Logan's idea.
Logan: In 1990 I wrote about how the Kaibab Tribe refused hundreds of millions of dollars by rejecting a hazardous waste incinerator. I knew nothing of tribes, and it was breathtaking how chaotic they could be, and then suddenly pivot in unison, like a flock of blackbirds. I started reading about them and was stunned by the utterly dismissive “digger” attitudes. You can read articles by the sympathetic William Palmer from Cedar City where, into the 1950’s, he’s still arguing that they’re human. So originally it was designed as a local bridge, a way these elders could tell their own stories, and it evolved from there. But the prime mover was really this landscape itself, wondering what kind of people it would create given a few millennia.
Talk about your collaborative process, in terms of meeting your subjects, hearing their stories and capturing their images.
Michael: Logan did all the legwork, finding the potential subjects and tracking them down, scheduling appointments, usually at their home. Because the interviews were much longer than the portrait session, Logan went first. After a couple of hours they were generally ready for a break. The thing that made it all work out, despite the subjects' reticence, was Logan's meticulous and exhaustive research. He always brought a story about one of the subject's relatives or close friends that served as the ‘icebreaker,’ and then we were off and running.
Logan: The portrait break became an essential part of the process, much more than just a breather from interview gruel. Portraiture is by nature empowering, but Michael raised it to an honoring, and through his attention and professionalism they came to trust us and the overall process more. Often the interview crux emerged after the portrait experience due to this added trust. Plus, Michael’s great company on long desert drives.
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