The People
Behind High Iron
Eleven public artists. A core team of organizers, historians, and community weavers. Elder knowledge holders whose stories anchor the work. And a wide community of collaborators across Wyoming who make it move.
Conor Mullen
Conor Mullen is a socially engaged artist who uses collaborative approaches in designing and making visual, public, and events-based projects. He has worked as a graphic designer, community organizer, art educator, and museum preparator over the years, and he currently puts all of those skill sets towards his role with High Iron. Conor works alongside Aubrey and Laura on project planning, while supporting High Iron's commissioned artists and community programs. He earned his BFA (2011) and MSW (2023) from the University of Wyoming in Laramie, where he finds his sense of home. In 2026, Conor was awarded a State of the Art prize from Creative Capital and an Alternative Educator of the Year award from the Wyoming Art Education Association. Also a contributing artist — his installations Sea Change, Tooth and Nail, To the Laborers & To the Land, and Remember and Respond are woven throughout the boxcar.
Aubrey Edwards
Aubrey is a visual artist, collaborative anthropologist, historical archaeologist, educator, storyteller, and memory worker. Her socially engaged practice spans the academic, creative, applied, and public spheres, exploring intersections of culture, history, and community. She has the joy of leading High Iron's descendant installations and oral history methodology, bringing ancestors' lived experiences into the train car through codesigned interactive installations. She was Wyoming State Visual Artist Fellow 2023 and 2025–26 National Arts Futures Fellow with Creative West. As a PhD student in Public Humanities at the University of Wyoming, she researches and writes on the critical impact of artists in collective memory work.
Laura McDermit
Manages scheduling, transportation, and site coordination — the logistical work that keeps a 60-foot boxcar moving across Wyoming on time and on mission.
The Elders Who
Anchor the Archive
Carlos and Adrian have provided wisdom, guidance, and help all along the way — from walking us through the previous lives of the car, to helping us imagine how to move it across the state, to greasing up a stubborn door. They share stories of their work and union lives, while making sure we stay on track. We eat a lot of breakfasts together at Perkins, and we do a lot of listening.
Carlos Córdova
Carlos grew up in Superior, Wyoming, where coal and rail work were simply the family business. His father migrated from New Mexico and worked underground in the mines and on the rails, and Carlos followed him into both — spending nearly 40 years as a welder on the line. That kind of work runs in the blood as much as it does the resume: the heat of the torch, the rhythm of the crew, the particular knowledge that only comes from decades spent keeping a railroad running. Carlos is Pueblo, and his presence on High Iron carries that lineage forward — his father's migration, his own four decades of labor, and the stories that come from a life spent close to the rails. His memories of work, solidarity, and the daily texture of railroad life anchor the oral history collection at the heart of the boxcar.
Adrian Hall
Adrian spent his career on Wyoming's rails, working his way from section crews up through managerial roles before retiring. He's a Modoc descendant of Black Jim, and that history travels with him wherever he goes. He's presently in Laramie earning his degree to become a substitute teacher, with plans to bring that education home to Oregon and work with Indigenous youth there — carrying his decades of hands-on experience into a classroom instead of a rail yard. Outside of work, Adrian was a championship bull rider at Frontier Days, which says as much about who he is as any job title could. His voice and memory carry the experience of generations of workers whose contributions shaped Wyoming's economy and landscape, and his willingness to share that history — patiently, generously — has been essential to High Iron from the start.
The Artists of
High Iron
Leland Bryan
Still HereLeland Bryan is a Lakota artist from Eagle Butte, South Dakota whose practice weaves together ledger drawing traditions and contemporary street art. He grew up eager to learn Lakota cultural traditions, first drawing with pens and paper from his mother's high school office. Today he makes commissioned works, paints murals, and leads art workshops — carrying the traditions of his youth into a living, evolving practice.
Michael Chavez
La BarraMichael Chavez is an artist and public art administrator born and raised in Laramie, Wyoming. He holds a BFA from the University of Wyoming and an MFA from the University of Kansas. This project is personal: his father spent 30 years as a Union Pacific conductor, and his maternal grandfather worked nearly 35 years as a maintenance of way laborer. His work for High Iron is an homage to his family — and to all those who sacrificed to build a better life for their children.
Railroad descendant
Anjel Garcia
Pat Trujillo, Juan Dominguez, Joe "Little Joe" VillalpandoAnjel Garcia is a visual artist from Cheyenne, Wyoming who specializes in painting, drawing, and mixed media. She recently completed her associate's degree in Art, Communications, and Creative Arts, and will continue her studies in Graphic Design at the University of Northern Colorado. Her work is rooted in family, western life, and everyday cultural practice. Her ancestors traveled from Mexico to Cheyenne to work on the railroad.
Railroad descendant
Eirini Linardaki
I wake up to the sound of mountains (walking against the wind)Eirini Linardaki is a visual artist and public art project developer whose work centers accessibility and multiculturalism. Born in Athens, Greece, she trained at institutions in Ireland, Berlin, and Marseille. She has developed public art projects with the NYC Parks Department, the MTA, and the NYC Mayor's Office for Climate Policy — including a 2024 large-scale digital installation for Grand Central Station. Recipient of the 2022 Artivist Award and the Andy Warhol Foundation Grant, 2023.
Amanda Pittman
Right-of-WayAmanda Pittman is a lifelong Wyomingite — artist, sewist, and maker — whose work draws on the natural landscape of Wyoming, history, science fiction, and speculative fiction. She holds a BA in Anthropology from the University of Wyoming and has designed costumes for multiple productions with Laramie's Relative Theatrics. Her ancestors traveled from what is now New Mexico to Rawlins to work on the railroad.
Railroad descendant
Danielle SeeWalker
They Gossip About the Mázačhaŋku (Railroad) RaidDanielle SeeWalker is a Hunkpapa Lakota citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe — multidisciplinary artist, muralist, writer, and mother. Her work examines the intersections of Native American stereotypes, microaggressions, and colonialist systems. She is co-founder of The Red Road Project and published her first book, Still Here, in 2020. A 2022 Mayor's Excellence in Arts Award recipient and Emmy Award winner for her documentary work with Rocky Mountain PBS.
Jetsonorama (Chip Thomas)
the bison didn't cross the tracks; the tracks crossed the bison revisitedChip Thomas, aka Jetsonorama, is a photographer, public artist, and physician who worked in a small clinic on the Navajo Nation. A graduate of HBCU Meharry Medical College and a National Health Service Corps scholarship recipient, his four-year obligation turned into 36 years of service with the Diné. While there he coordinated the Painted Desert Project, a decade-long constellation of murals and public artworks created by artists from the Navajo Nation and around the world. His own public artwork, begun in 2009, consists of enlarged black-and-white photographs pasted onto roadside structures across the Navajo Nation — a way of reflecting back the love and beauty the community shared with him. Since leaving the Navajo Nation in 2023, Thomas has continued creating community-based murals in minority neighborhoods.
Swoon
HuajuapanCaledonia Curry — known globally as Swoon — is recognized as one of the first women street artists to gain international recognition. For over two decades she has made intimate portraits and immersive installations that explore the relationship between individuals and the built environment, using art as a catalyst for social change and collective healing. Her work is held by MoMA, Tate Modern, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and MASS MoCA.
Karen Vaughan
Above Because BelowKaren Vaughan is a scientist, educator, and artist who makes watercolor paint from foraged soil pigments — connecting ecological materials to the landscapes they come from. Her practice sits at the intersection of soil science research and art-making, sparking curiosity about the beauty of the unseen. Featured in Smithsonian Magazine, Orion Magazine, and Wyoming Public Radio.
John Wilhelm
History Shining in the SunJohn Wilhelm is a musician, audio engineer, and sound designer who has spent his life in Wyoming. A University of Wyoming graduate with studies in Music and English, he has contributed sound design to over 40 productions with Relative Theatrics since 2014, serving as Technical Director since 2021. He is currently building a portfolio of sound art and installations that examine the American West.
Railroad descendant"I am deeply drawn to projects that center labor as a value, rather than celebrating nobility, conquest, or powerful men...I have grown tired of monuments that elevate authority while overlooking the people whose daily work sustains the world."
— Eirini Linardaki"I learned how the railroad's most devastating events in the lives of my people was the crossing of railroads through our lands and how it separated our buffalo herds…We were a migratory people — wherever the buffalo went, we went. When the railroads were placed, our buffalo would not cross the railroads and therefore it affected their natural migratory patterns…I have always created art to redirect the narrative and working with High Iron has led me to creating a piece that I most likely would not have otherwise worked on."
— Danielle SeeWalker
The Community
Behind the Work
High Iron exists because of a wide community of people who gave their time, knowledge, labor, and care.
- Brigida Blasi
- Rick Giovale
- Maren Kallas
- Lena Newlin
- Frank Profaizer
- Chris and Rubel Vigil
- Ming Media
- Elena Ricci
- Kyle Summerfield
- Xanadu Productions
- Rhiannon Jakopak
- Jasmin Lopez
- Dan Lyon
- Elena Rosales
- Matthew Sledge
- Sarah Davis & Suzi Taylor
- Wyoming State Archives
- López Concrete and Construction
- Jim Jereb
- Dalton Johnson
- Josh Kaffer
- Chelsea Lowry
- Rocio Gomez Sandoval
- Stoney Smith
- Nathan Vasek
- ALCES Community Works
- Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen
- City of Laramie
- International Coalition of Sites of Conscience
- Jess Brauer & the Laramie Plains Civic Center
- Monument Lab
- Albany County Public Library
- The Mellon Foundation
- Wyoming Humanities Council
- Cultural Trust Fund
- Rocky Mountain Power
- Creative West
- Wyoming 250 Commission
- Wallace Foundation
Become a Partner
High Iron is built on relationships. If your organization works with communities along the I-80 corridor, we'd love to talk.