Excavator was composed during a four week period when I was commuting daily between Indianapolis and Bloomington along IN-37. This was during the height of construction converting the route to a major highway. On my daily drive, I watched as a legion of earth-moving machines gradually transformed the landscape around me. Rolling hills were flattened, valleys were filled in, and the green midwestern landscape was replaced with an endless sea of mud and rock. Each day, these machines gradually re-shaped the face of the earth. I was in awe of the human ability to impose order upon the natural world, yet amidst this transformation it struck me that the excavation bore an eerie resemblance to an open wound. I wondered if this scarred landscape may reveal something of the cost we pay in our efforts to force the land to adapt to us.