Inspired by the ecological bird counting studies on the reserve yearly, the installation So Blue is an alluring, fantastical, mirage of the original ecological gesture where a mist net is used to gently capture birds in the area for a count-and-release. This sculpture no longer captures birds only the wind, an ever shifting form. This UCI Ecological Reserve is less than two miles from Pioneertown, CA, an 1880’s-themed town developed as a shooting location for Spaghetti Westerns and TV series in Hollywood, but was also a functioning commercial area for the residents living there at the time. Using the track of a solitary whistler to the tune of So Blue by Prince, the sound is reminiscent of not only the native birds, a symbol of ‘freedom’, but the lone cowboy in a spaghetti western contemplating her own relationship to the land at the end of a film. One individual in the vastness of a landscape, overwhelmed by the juxtaposed concepts of romanticism for unadulterated “nature” with the fraught and dangerous concept of manifest destiny. Ceramic spurs, that can rotate, adorn the posts of the “net.” While the three-toned organza breaks up the visual plane of the immense reserve landscape, at times completely reflective and other times a sheer window into the landscape behind it. This piece was an initial exploration into the illusion of Hollywood’s “west” and the actual landscape that is a vibrant ecological scene. Ornamentation functions as a visual language for bodily transformation, intertwining the natural and architectural, the organic and inorganic, the familiar and fantastical. Stringer explores the intersections between physical gestures and metaphysical narratives, contemplating societal constructs and inviting contemplation on vulnerability, metamorphosis, and resilience.