The Prevention and the Immortalization

 

Something that I believe in is the concept of “tabula rasa,” that everyone is born, in some way, as a clean slate. I was placed in my environment as a blank canvas, and my slate was painted with the beguiling grey blues of the shore and the glimmers of ivory shells, warm dunes and pink granite. My stimuli consists of the soft bombarding of salt air to the skin, sounds of a gull’s cry or the moving toll of a bell buoy in the night, and the smell of motor boat fuel drifting across the harbor. My sensory experiences have shaped me into a walking capsule of my environment. It is this very reason that motivates me to create work focusing on my home, otherwise known as Stony Creek or the Thimble Islands. It’s more than a home, it is ingrained in me, I have a love for it, and it has completely overtaken my visual inclinations in a way that I cannot control. I realize that I am immensely lucky to live in a place that I perceive as magical--but, not as lucky as I thought, it turns out. My little haven will not be spared by the wrongdoings of man. The tides will rise, within my lifetime, to surpass the floodlines, rendering the space nearly unlivable as is. I have a need to preserve this piece of me. The preservation happens in two stages- the prevention, and the immortalization. The prevention consists of me striving to do my part to better the environmental problem at hand. The immortalization phase focuses more on ephemerality, and capturing the fleeting beauty that will inevitably be gone one day.  I must bring consciousness to the dire climate issues as well as awareness to this niche beauty that I wish to bring to everyone’s attention-- in hope that others can appreciate it as much as I do, even if their individual slates were painted with another palette.