Throughout her five decades of artmaking, drawing was a fundamental part of Nancy Holt’s creative thinking. One of her most ambitious projects remains in suspension: Sky Mound, begun in 1984. Four miles from Manhattan, between the New Jersey Turnpike and the Amtrak railway, lies a massive landfill. Holt was recruited to design the reclamation of the site, which would both mitigate environmental damage and transform the landfill into a sculptural observatory.

Throughout her five decades of artmaking, drawing was fundamental to Nancy Holt’s creative thinking. She would test ideas on the page, developing technical details as she shaped her ideas. These drawings are for the sculpture Wild Spot (1979–80), located on the campus of Wellesley College. In the first drawing illustrated above, Holt shows the exact site.