“Amidst Rurality stems from the thought that a lot of the most vivid memories that I’ve had have been in the rural environments where I live,” James Snyder `26 said at the opening of his Edith Renfrow Smith `37 Gallery show.
Snyder displays his exploration of rural spaces through sculpture, woodwork and charcoal, paying tribute to what he holds precious. Snyder documents in his gallery the rural spaces of his youth spent in Statesville, N.C., of summers outside of Traverse City, Mich. and his time in Grinnell, Iowa.
For Snyder, the gallery, which opened on Sept. 8, is about sharing the love for the places you love. Mounted upright, in the corner of the gallery, antlers proudly protruding from its skull is the piece that, for Snyder, brought the gallery together.
“This piece just felt like it needed to go in the show because it was sort of the starting point — the keystone of the exhibit,” Snyder said.
Snyder said the deer head, a trophy of a hunt last year with his father five miles outside of Grinnell, holds many positive memories from his time in rural Iowa.
“There is just a lot of joy that went into the antlers and the rack of this piece, and just so many memories of the piece as an art form and then as a trophy of a hunt that I just needed to include,” Snyder said.
Snyder said he had shared the meat from the deer skull on display with his friends through cuisine. For him, a highlight of the experience was cooking and serving the venison to a vegetarian friend who normally abstains from meat consumption for ethical reasons.
“I feel like it’s really important to understand that this deer … died for this piece, but also I got to feed a lot of my friends with the meat that I got from it,” Snyder said.
On the wall across from the deer skull, Snyder displays charcoal drawings of Blowing Rock, North Carolina, a favorite place for him and his fiancee.
“I go here with my fiancee and we run at least once a summer,” Snyder said. “I knew I was going to propose to her, and I knew where I wanted to propose was going to be on a run at Blowing Rock. So I made these for her to give to her after we get married, of the place where we got engaged … She loves them. She’s excited for them to be in our house.”
On the wall left of the charcoal drawings of Blowing Rock hang five handwritten letters preserved in clay which maintain the theme of precious moments with family. Snyder said that because his family lives far away on the East Coast, the most precious things he has in relation to them are the physical things they send him.
“I call it ‘A Moment In Time’ because each note has a time where I read it and felt closer to each of these people,” Snyder said.
Although wood, charcoal and ivory pieces characterize the gallery, photos of scarlet and black amorphous sculptures hang on the walls, adding a pop of colour. While not physically present, the images depict checkered clay in the College colors, which Snyder permanently installed in the cracked sidewalks surrounding Bucksbaum for passers by to find and delight in.
“I like the fact that I’m helping with the less broken look of campus and, of course, leaving a legacy of positivity and positive change,” Snyder said.
Whether from here in Grinnell, his hometown in North Carolina, or the Michigan countryside where Snyder spent his summers working, Snyder’s collection shares appreciation for that which is most precious to him — the places that bring him peace, the people he treasures and the objects and memories he gets to share with others.
“The message of this gallery is just to love where you are, even if your loved ones are far away, or even if it’s not the most beautiful place,” Snyder said. “Leave an imprint on that place that makes it better, and for the beautiful places that you’ve been, capture those and remember however you can.”
This article has been updated to correct a misspelling of James Snyder’s name in the headline. Updated on 9/22/2025.
