"Re-development" 2006 Etching, Digital Print, and Silkscreen

Several houses surround small portions of water.  Soon the rest of the gravel and sand will be excavated out and create one yet to be named lake.  This is the lake that John Koster’s office and new house are sitting on.  He seems to be the unofficial Mayor of the area.  He has lived and worked on the land for decades.  Residents remember all of his cattle, and the feeling of a bull run when they would help John move them from one pasture to another.  He also grew corn as cattle feed and cantaloupe where the lakes are because they grew so well in gravelly soil.

After he began excavating the area he learned a lot about the history of the land.  He has described what glaciers moving through the area have done to the layers of soil and rock.  He also finds some interesting objects as he churns up the earth such as what he originally thought was a large softball, but in a closer look saw that it was a human skull.  The local police believed it to be centuries old and referred him to Grand Valley State University’s Archeology Department whom in the end removed several bags full of bones. 

John looks at photographs of the area from when he began to excavate the gravel and has said that you wouldn’t know what area you were looking at because it has changed so much.  In another five years you might be able to say the same.