Mountain Scholar
Mountain Scholar is an open access repository service that collects, preserves, and provides access to digitized library collections and other scholarly and creative works from Colorado State University and the University Press of Colorado. It also serves as a dark archive for the Open Textbook Library.
Communities in Mountain Scholar
Select a community to browse its collections.
- Explore the Colorado State University community’s scholarly output as well as items from the University at large and the CSU Libraries.
- A limited number of titles are available here. To see all OTL titles, please visit the Open Textbook Library at https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks. Only Open Textbook Library staff have access to all OTL Archive titles held in Mountain Scholar.
- Access is limited to University Press of Colorado members. Non-members: to purchase books, please visit https://upcolorado.com/.
Recent Submissions
Quin Monroe: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Monroe, Quin, artist
The artist's statement: As It Settles. In the marrow of memory, I build and unbuild a house. The house is a mirror. The mirror reflects a body. The body is a message. The message speaks in the spaces between body and house. The painting arrives in the investigation of the spaces between. — In this body of work the figure emerges and dissolves - sometimes a silhouette, other times a portrait. I use oil paint to explore the tension between memory and place, longing and resistance - woven into fields of pattern and color. My paintings hold onto the uneasy edges of self and unpolished memories, dirtied and weathered in their reflections. Instead, memory becomes patchwork: pieces stitched together, other parts missing, some replaced with stand-ins that the mind offers in an attempt to complete the memory- or image. Color finds itself in these paintings quickly. Sometimes methodical, others on whim. Oftentimes, oranges find a way to seep into the paintings and saturate these spaces. Its place as a foundational color in the body of paintings mirrors the foundation of its symbolism in my memory of home. It has threaded itself through my life with the Leukemia diagnosis of my two brothers. In my paintings, orange is both ground and ghost - an atmosphere that clings to the figures, burdening the narratives they carry. The figures I paint are placeholders for what cannot be fully recovered: they gesture toward what was lost, what was never known, and what quietly survived. They exist between absence and presence, between childhood and adulthood, where the work of forgiveness begins. I am not reconstructing the past but rather sifting through its remains.
Mikey Reynolds: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Reynolds, Mikey, artist
The artist's statement: I would like to live a life in clay. I wonder why clay remains so rare in our world. What can't clay do? It seems nearly limitless if one is to just put in the effort to understand where there is friction. This is where the process, the how, becomes so important. It is one thing to have an idea of what clay could be or what could be made with clay, but it is another entirely to figure out the way to do it. Clay is about doing, and I love the doing. My style involves a reciprocal relationship with clay. I do not always know what I am making while I am working. I trust that when I push clay, the clay will push me. The pottery wheel is a favorite tool because of its unlimited potential to create radially symmetrical building blocks (or modules). Once something is off the wheel, it can be transformed, altered and combined with other parts. When designing, I account for the mass of each part and how that builds into a sturdy, stout whole with its own (gravitational) pull. Further, I look at lines traced out by the edge of three-dimensional forms paying careful attention to how they interact to build concentricity and continuity. I move around and try to align edges differently. I realize that the work is placing me in space just as much as I choose where to place the work. Using slips, underglazes and glazes I have prepared, I build layers of pattern. Each mark can be traced to a repeated action. Every repetition is a variation on a theme and a search for an authentic action and the mark it leaves. Can process be honest? This question regarding material and gestural reality fascinates me, and I believe clay may have the answer. A ceramic object is full of clues. Playing detective with a mug or bowl can be very stimulating because we can feel how something is made. Pots are beautiful because they are bold, and they are honest. They reveal all the modules of their character to the world. Many external influences shape what I do and how I do it. From the hidden images in drywall and clouds, the patterns and lessons offered by plants, the potential in a brush soaked in slip, to candy and the sweet pleasure of just filling space, I draw in inspiration at every breath. I bring these moments to the clay, and in its memory it records them. The rarity, yet paradoxical inevitability, of life holds me in a place of curiosity. I bring my questions to the clay, and it offers me the chance to find answers. Better yet, it leaves me with a bounty of more-refined questions. I wonder what I will get to do next.
Compost may encourage native grasses and discourage forbs
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Puckett, Arysa, author; Paschke, Mark, advisor; Dahl, Jamie, advisor
Farmers and land managers have used compost as a beneficial amendment to improve soil health and increase plant yield for centuries. This study analyzes the effects of compost on native plant establishment in the presence of a non-native species, Bromus inermis (smooth brome). In a replicated greenhouse study, I applied four compost treatments to pots containing native plant species and smooth brome: a control group with no compost added, and three other treatments in which compost was added at 10%, 20%, and 30% by volume. After 7 weeks of growth, I compared the dry weight of the aboveground biomass and the abundance of each species across treatments. As the compost increased, 4 grass species reacted positively and increased in biomass. However, forb species did not follow this trend, and their biomass decreased as the compost levels increased.
Halle Motley: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Motley, Halle, artist
The artist's statement: My work is inspired by the transformative power of narrative. I take stories rich with meaning and emotion, and translate them into a physical form. Through metal, stones, and time, I strive to transport the viewer into the narrative while also triggering their mind to process and think about the narrative in new ways. My practice is deeply influenced by religious art's historical role in non-literate societies, where visual elements bridged gaps between written scripture and public understanding. Such art transcended language, class, and age barriers, whether sharing stories broadly or preserving them for select audiences. In this tradition, I distill complex narratives, religious, historical, emotional, personal, into digestible visual elements that can be both viewed and worn. My work tells the story of pivotal moments in my personal life and in the grander scheme of time, all that radically shape who I am. My recent body of work draws inspiration from my transformative trips, how they deepened my relationship with God, and changed my view of life. Witnessing how ancient stories manifested both through centuries-old artwork and in the natural landscape revealed complementary interpretations that I now weave together to share these narratives with contemporary audiences. Each technique, fabrication, gem or stone setting, or casting, is chosen specifically to enhance the storytelling. For example bronze has rich associations to historical transformation and artistic tradition, and carries cultural weight that influences perception. When I use bronze, I hope that the long history of bronze being used in sculptures as well as in the foundations of society are brought to one's mind. Every metal and stone embodies meaning that I deliberately harness. Through these material choices and techniques, I create objects that communicate stories, while honoring the ancient tradition of making meaning tangible.
Brody Cox: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Cox, Brody, artist
The artist's statement: My approach to metal centers around form and color. Whenever I start a piece, I push the final version to be visually transformed from how it started. How can rigid metal be seen as natural and organic? What if the color of copper became jet black? These are the types of questions I ask myself when making work, and the ones that push my material to take new shapes and depictions. When designing a project, I am always drawn towards ambiguity and abstraction. My favorite pieces leave the viewer uncertain, but wanting to know more. The mysterious and weird nature of my work tries not to be objective, so it can be read differently from person to person. It is a challenge to make something visually abstract, but also carry intentionality. I am constantly trying to find this balance as I work, but I am the most satisfied when I do.