In 2009, when artist Sonja Hinrichsenwas in Snowmass Village for an artist's residency, she took a walk in the snow with a new pair of snowshoes, and started to mess around.
"It started just out of play, walking patterns into fields of snow. There is a pretty big golf course in that area…and nobody would go there."
Hinrichsen later got her camera and photographed her patterns. That's when she realized "this amazing thing. Depending on where I was with my camera in relation to the sunlight, I got a white line in the snow or I got a dark line in the snow."
On subsequent visits to the state over the next five years, Hinrichsen, who is based in Oakland, kept refining her snow drawings. Eventually, she developed a style of art that leaves beautiful, ephemeral patterns created by walking through the snow.
At first the artist worked alone, making patterns near Hayden, Colorado in 2011.
Then she started incorporating volunteers in her work.
"I could just make much, much bigger pieces, and at the same time invite the people to come out with me and share this nature experience. It's kind of meditative in a sense."
In the winter of 2012, Hinrichsen and a company of volunteers from Steamboat Springs and Hayden created snow drawings at Rabbit Ears Pass, spanning both sides of the highway.
Her work continued in 2013 with another set of snow drawings at Catamount Lake, near Steamboat Springs. That effort included a lot more volunteers – and a lot of work, because the snow was deep and fresh.
"It was really a workout!" Hinrichsen recalls.
Then, in 2014, the focus of her project shifted. Instead of just making beautiful patterns with volunteers, the artist focused her attention on the Yampa River.
"We decided we would recreate the flow of the Yampa River on top of the frozen reservoir lake."
To do this, Hinrichsen organized volunteers to start at four different points, representing the four main tributaries of the river. The day before, she tried to teach volunteers how to walk like water flows "water goes fast, slow, meanders, whirlpools, bounces over rocks, goes down rapids."
On the day of, she wasn't quite sure how the result would look.
"Being out there, looking at how it worked, I was like, oh my God, I don't know if this is going to work, it just didn't look right from the ground ,because I had no perspective and it felt like people were way too close together and were just walking straight and going way too instead of doing more patterns."
The next day, when she went up in a plane to photograph the image, she was surprised.
"Actually, it worked really well," she said.
Hinrichsen hopes to return to Colorado for more work, although this winter she'll be in Finland, creating her snow drawings on the (hopefully) frozen North Sea. Her art has long reflected concerns about the environment and water. She's done work about the damming of the Yangtze River in China and other Colorado-focused pieces on the importance of the South Platte and Cherry Creek to the city of Denver.
She plans to work with volunteers in her snow art work in Finland, and said a big part of working with a community is to relinquish control.
"Once they are out there and working I cannot coordinate them anymore. So basically all I can do is give them instructions before they take off."
