Walk into the back gallery at the Boise Art Museum this summer and you find yourself standing in a river. Twenty-seven ceremonial drum frames hang from a grid overhead, suspended on visible threads of fly-fishing backing line. On one face of each drum, the canyon topography of the Salmon River, hand-stitched in slow loops. On the other, the river's surface. Real stones and boulders cover the floor under your feet. A low audio track, the sound of moving water, plays around you.
The installation is called Homage to the Salmon River, and it is the work of Ceci Richardson-Salvador, an Ecuadorian artist who has spent her time in Idaho running the state's rivers, both with her camera and without it. She is one of two artists, both women with Latin backgrounds, chosen for this year's Here Comes Idaho: Belonging, the Boise Art Museum's annual exhibition of Idaho artists. She works a 9-to-5 and makes her art in the hours that remain.
We caught up with her before her summer rafting season began. Here's what she shared.
Lifestyle: Do you have training to be an artist? Where did you explore and master your artistry and style?
Ceci Richardson-Salvador: Yes, I have formal training as an artist. I began my education in Ecuador, where I earned a BFA with an emphasis in sculpture and a minor in photography. That academic experience gave me a strong foundation in form, materials, composition, visual language, and art history, while also encouraging me to view art as a space for inquiry and exploration.
Over time, I’ve developed my style by integrating photography, installation, and material-based processes, guided by my relationship with landscape, plants, and place. While my education gave me a strong technical and conceptual foundation, my artistry has been refined through lived experience, experimentation, and an ongoing dialogue with the environments I inhabit.
Lifestyle: What has the 2026 Boise Art Museum Idaho Artists exhibit experience been like?
Ceci Richarson-Salvador: Being part of Here Comes Idaho: Belonging, an annual series of exhibitions at the Boise Art Museum dedicated to promoting local women artists, has been deeply meaningful. It feels especially significant to be one of two artists featured, both of us women with Latin backgrounds. That representation matters—it brings visibility to our perspectives and the cultural layers that inform our work.
This experience has pushed me to grow. Working within a relatively constrained timeframe challenged me to focus, trust my process, and realize what I’m capable of. Being selected by a museum curator—having someone recognize and believe in my work at that level—has been incredibly validating. It has given me both confidence and momentum to continue developing new projects.
At the same time, the experience has highlighted the realities of being a working artist. I currently hold a job from 9 to 5, which means I’m not able to dedicate myself to my practice full-time. After covering living expenses, there is often very little left to invest in materials, and my time to produce work is limited. It can be challenging to sustain both the creative and financial demands, but I continue because I believe in the possibility of building a life through my art—whether through commissions, collaborations, or invitations to exhibit.
Lifestyle: The BAM exhibit is multi-sensory – tell readers about the senses they can engage when in the exhibit space!
Ceci Richardson-Salvador: The exhibition is designed as a multisensory experience that invites viewers to engage visually, spatially, and through sound. My installation represents the entire Salmon River through 27 double-sided ceremonial wood drum frames, each suspended from a high grid with visible fly-fishing backing line. This material choice is intentional—it speaks to the fragility of the river ecosystem and aquatic life while also referencing the human presence within these landscapes.
As visitors move through the space, they are surrounded by these forms, creating a sense of being within the river itself. On one side of each drum, I depict the canyon topography using maps; on the other, the water’s surface. Each image is hand-stitched, adding texture and a sense of time to the work. The stitching becomes a form of mark-making that speaks to care, labor, and connection.
The floor is populated with real stones and boulders, evoking the riverbed and grounding the installation physically. Sound is an essential element in this piece, and it is the first time I’ve incorporated it into my work. I created an audio layer to echo the rhythms and presence of the river, with the intention of transporting the viewer into that landscape. Together, these elements—visual, tactile, and auditory—create an immersive experience that reflects not just the image of the river but the feeling of being in an Idaho river landscape.
See Ceci Richardson-Salvador’s work at the Boise Art Museum through August 2026.