The formations of the Badlands surround me even as I kick off my mud-encrusted boots outside my front door; so as not to dirty the shag wall-to-wall carpet in apartment 52D, ranger housing I am given in park headquarters. Once inside all I can see from the big front window is a bare courtyard and another of the four low buildings that make up the "Quad". From the small windows in my kitchen I can, from a certain angle, peek out at the sun going down behind the jagged turrets of the 300 foot prairie drop called the Badlands wall. You could say this apartment lacks charm, furnished in mustard colored Naugahyde and particleboard, but it allows me to live within the park, in the middle of this incredible landscape, and for that I am very grateful to be chosen by the National Park System as an artist-in-residence. This will be my home for a month and I know I will soon find it welcoming when I return tired and hungry each evening and tack more drawings to the stark white walls, as the stars fill the big sky and are drowned out by the floodlights in the courtyard.