Spotlight: "Time and Tide"
Spotlight gives me an opportunity to showcase a particular image or set of images. Close-up photos can display details from larger pieces. Background stories about the concept, inspiration, circumstances, or development of a piece can be shared, including progressive images of a work-in-progress.
Spotlight library: Is More Than, Interconnected, Rivers in the Sky, The Cost of Soft, AR 4, The Coastal Zone, Time and Tide
"TIME AND TIDE"
"Time and tide wait for no man." ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
This quote from The Canterbury Tales was first published in 1395, but with climate change and resulting sea level rise, it could not be more true today. Even if we could stop greenhouse gas emissions this very minute, sea level rise will continue. Current projections estimate it will be 1 - 2 feet higher by 2050 and as much as 8-10 feet higher by the end of the century.
Coastal wetlands are the buffer of all buffers. They stabilize shorelines by absorbing excess water like a sponge, not to mention they can sequester 3 to 5 times more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than tropical rainforests. Yet stress from urban and rural development along with pollution from agricultural and storm drain run-off threaten these ecosystems, making them vulnerable to rising sea levels, intensified high tides, and raging storm surge.
Two of my new "Folding and Mending" pieces reference this vulnerability. As additional ocean water encroaches on our tidal marshes, the chemistry of their briny mix is altered, impacting the plant and animal species they support. With "Time and Tide," pictured below, I have overlaid a close-up of intertidal waters with a coastal wetland landscape.
The top of the print has been dampened and distressed to mimic the waves.
Grassy areas of the marsh are torn apart as if by high tides or storm surge. Pieces are stitched back together and re-attached in a hopeful gesture that we can restore and maintain these essential ecosystems.
In the second piece, "Submergent," the marsh image is "framed" with rippling water, inviting the viewer to see the landscape within the frame of rising seas.
Folds, like waves, extend into the marsh.
Stitches protrude from the grasses on all sides, like roots reaching out for solid ground.
The Good News:
In July of 2024, the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation (CMSF) was awarded $71.1 million to help fund climate change adaptation and resilience projects in the Monterey Bay region. Projects will include flood management programs, climate-related workforce development, wildfire risk reduction efforts, and $4.2 million to the Elkhorn Slough Foundation to restore and adapt its marshes and nearby transportation corridors for sea level rise.
I hope you enjoyed this Spotlight on the concept and making of these Time and Tide pieces. You can view more images from the portfolio in my Folding and Mending gallery.
Please feel free to send comments or questions via my Contact Page.