Colorful Yellowstone
Rocio Gomez Sandoval, 2025

Colorful Yellowstone is a project that was created in 2024 during a Creative Aging Program hosted by LPAC. The teaching artist for this program was Rocio Gomez Sandoval and the contributing artists were: RoseMarie Aridas, Tracy Blakeman, Liza Cuthbert-Millett, Catherine Gunton, Roberta Harper-McIntosh, Sylvia Parker, Marilyn Sinclair, and Theresa Williams.

This piece is displayed in the lobby of the Laramie Recreation Center.

About the artwork -

Yellowstone is a land where the earth breathes—where color seeps from the core of the planet and spills across stone, steam, and soil. In Colorful Yellowstone, I translate this geologic poetry into fiber, creating a landscape you don’t just see—you feel.

This textile mural is a tactile symphony of geothermal wonder. Inspired by the chromatic eruptions of the Grand Prismatic Spring, the sulfur-stained basins, and the surreal living crusts that cling to Yellowstone’s thermophilic edges

The piece captures the park’s sensory richness through texture, movement, and layered color.

We use latch hooking, macrame, crochet and weaving. Each fiber contour is a meditation on the forces shaping the land—erupting heat, ancient minerals, powerful winds, microbial blooms, and the quiet, eternal work of erosion and renewal.

Colorful Yellowstone” is not a literal map but a dream-memory of a sacred terrain. It asks viewers to step into the vibrancy of the earth’s raw skin—to explore its ridges, pools, and mysteries through touch, curiosity, and awe.

About the Program: This Creative Aging Program was hosted by Laramie Public Art Coalition through the Creative Aging Grant (Wyoming Arts Council). This program was made possible in part by a grant provided by the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies in partnership with E.A. Michelson Philanthropy, and additional support from the Wyoming State Legislature. This Creative Aging program was led by local artist Rocio Gomez Sandoval and free to participants (age 55+). This program ran for eight consecutive weeks where students learned the techniques they ultimately used to complete this fiber mural. Many hours and thousands of pieces of yarn went into this project, all done by hand by members of the Laramie community.