3 minute read
Zola VanNorman, Ancient Art
ANCIENT ART
The plates lined the ceiling around the large kitchen, each one featuring a unique fantastical creature. The designs had been traced from the original drawings and painted by Zola Skidmore VanNorman. “That one is the Wolf Man,” Zola explained, gesturing towards one of the plates without looking. She was guarded, protective of her findings, when asked where each one was located on the rock cliffs in the Big Horn Basin.
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The former Hot Springs County rodeo princess and basketball star had spent years exploring the Wyoming countryside and the drawings that dwelled in the Big Horn Basin region. These strange creatures with lines zig zagging around them are known as Dinwoody Petroglyphs and are unique to the Wind River Mountain Range. The long necks, squat bodies, shields and animal shapes have been studied for over seventy-five years by archeologists from all over the world.
Zola was an expert on the rock art and worked alongside Wyoming State Archaeologist, Dr. George Frison, on several dig sites throughout Hot Springs County. When vandals shot and used picks on the sacred art, she made it her mission to preserve these ancient drawings. She led lectures and urged everyone to contact their legislature to protect the sites.
In the early days of archaeology, the petroglyphs were chalked to see them more clearly and Zola took hundreds of photographs over the years. She also traced each individual drawing onto paper. Once back home, she would use an overhead projector to hand draw each creature onto a plate or canvas using colors from her imagination.
When Bud Ross, a good friend and fellow enthusiasts, asked to see her most valuable finds in the early 2000’s, Zola relented, although reluctantly.
She came back with a shoe box and removed three soapstone pipes. The pipes had been broken and Zola had carefully dug up all the pieces to glue them back together. They were aqua green, two to three inches in diameter with white carvings etched into them. A perfectly round hole was drilled from one end to another in each pipe stem. The pipes were works of art in themselves. One especially stood out with its intricate carvings of flying geese. By this time, Zola had two sets of pipes – the originals and an expertly rendered replica made of plastic.
Over the years, Zola had become legally blind but the rock art was etched into her mind’s eye. Visitors would ask about the artwork she had painstakingly recreated and she would point in the direction of the drawing and tell its story. With her passing in 2010, the world lost her knowledge and imagination but not her life’s work. The study Zola began over seventy years ago endures as modern archaeologists continue to refine her tracing methods with the aid of technology and make discoveries of their own.
Samples of her artwork are on display at the Hot Springs County Museum on 700 Broadway in Thermopolis. Visit the petroglyphs that inspired Zola at the Legend Rock Petroglyph Historic Site in Hamilton Dome, 29 miles northwest of Thermopolis.
