About this site

Dry Spell is an independent publication launched in February 2025 by Valerie Arcara. Currently it is a work in progress, but will soon feature writing, essays, and poetry by Valerie focused on a range of topics she is engaged with.

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About Valerie

Valerie Arcara is an interdisciplinary artist, professional skier, and helicopter pilot with a wide array of interests and expertise.

Her artwork explores the visual vernacular of human relations to natural and rural landscape, primarily through the lens of land use and built environments. Her work is grounded in place specificity and narrative, utilizing materials found in the field in combination with landscape photography to create immersive installations. For each project she draws heavily from her experience doing field-based research in locations all across the United States to carefully interpret how people are shaped by the land and vice versa.

As a skier she has been featured as an athlete in the all-women’s ski film Advice for Girls and her writing about skiing has been published in POWDER Magazine. She is supported by Icelantic Skis and previously was a mountain athlete and model for Arapahoe Basin ski area in Colorado.

As a pilot has flight time experience in MD500, R22, R44, and Airbus H125 type helicopters, mostly flying in the high altitude mountainous terrain of Southern Colorado where she did the bulk of her training.

Valerie received her MFA in Studio Art from the University of California—Davis in June of 2021 as a Dean’s Distinguished Fellow and received her BFA in Sculpture & Post-Studio Art Practice from the University of Colorado—Boulder in May of 2018.

All artwork can be found on Valerie's main website: valerie-arcara.art