Holt visited Alaska in March of 1986 upon invitation from the Visual Arts Center of Alaska in Anchorage, who hoped she might create a work of art in celebration of the region’s beauty. Holt was instead struck by the infiltration of the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline through pristine wilderness. Holt returned to Alaska to create the System Work Pipeline at the Visual Arts Center of Alaska Anchorage in July of 1986. A few months later, Holt created Pipeline II at the Fairbanks Arts Association in Fairbanks, which was on display from September 5 to 28, 1986. The primary materials of both Pipeline works are steel and oil, but the work extends beyond the gallery space and calls attention to the architecture and systems of the buildings in which they were exhibited. The steel pipes of Pipeline II twist in and out of the gallery and visually penetrate through the building to the interior space below. A section of pipe held up by metal supports leaks oil, pooling thickly on a white base.