Shelley Armitage grew up in the northwest Texas Panhandle in the small ranching and farming community of Vega, Texas, in Oldham County. She still owns and operates a family farm, 1200 acres of native grass, wheat and milo farmland bordering Highway Interstate 40 on the south and the Canadian River breaks on the north.

Armitage shared this landscape from childhood on, riding with her father and grandfather to check crops and cattle and later jogging and today walking the farm roads. Though most of her adult life has been spent away from the Panhandle as a university professor, Armitage has always returned to the “farm” which offered until recently a 360 degree view of earth and sky. Growing up in small town Texas, Armitage had the opportunity to try her hand at many things—running a farm was not expected to be one of them until both parents and her brother passed.

Today the landscape surrounding Armitage Farms appears overwhelmed by the massive wind turbines, soaring microwave towers, constant oil pumping rigs, and persistent sand and gravel digs. Armitage decided to convert the farmland into conservation grass planted to restore fragmented landscapes by recreating wildlife corridors and habitat.

Armitage’s professional life has offered her a connection with landscape through studies of photography, environmental literature, cultural and place studies. After living and working in diverse places—Portugal, Poland, Finland, and Hungary, teaching in the Southwest and Hawai’i, researching in New York, Washington DC, Oregon, Illinois, Missouri, Connecticut—place has taken on special meanings.

The author of eight books and fifty articles and essays, Armitage has held Fulbright Chairs in Warsaw and Budapest, a Distinguished Senior Professorship in Cincinnati, and the Dorrance Roderick Professorship in El Paso as well as three National Endowment for the Humanities grants, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a Rockefeller grant.

Even as the heartland remains in the Panhandle, the compass foot reaches out—Shelley Armitage resides part of each year in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Eastern (New York) Time.....7 PM

Not sure what time that is wherever in the world you are?  Find out here. http://www.worldtimeserver.com

WHERE?

The Writers Chatroom at:  http://www.writerschatroom.com/Enter.htm

Type in the name you wish to be known by, check the Guest Access box, and click Login. No password needed for scheduled chats.

Please note:  The chatroom is only open for regularly scheduled chats.