Resident 2011 and 2012
A Letter from Lake Superior for Temporary Island Dwellers
In the seasons when fortitude fails you, I am here, more present and persistent than you are familiar with. I move rocks with a patient love and immediate ferocity you only imagine in your dreams—those especially restless dreams when you’ve left the boat on the main mooring and the north winds wrapping around the island tighten your chest, imploring check-ins with headlamps at 4am and lost leeward hindsight.
In those hours outside of summer sun—when the island is left to the lichens, pines, maples, mosses, songbirds, voles, salamanders, spiders, trout, ants, moths, eagles, and countless others who holdfast less you—the island is still the island. Maybe more-so, maybe less. I can’t claim the methodical walks and attentive ear of yourself is any more intentional than that of the small spider living in the stones, or the waxwing in the balsam’s branches. Can you? Analysis isn’t consciousness, but that much you have already figured out.
Did it take you five, six, seven years to wonder what really happens hour by hour in those weeks outside what is comfortable for you? Do you know the arc the sun traces across the sky from your favorite place to take a photo from in late November? In early April?
I make work in and about diverse landscapes and communities; taking care to positively impact each when doing so. My practice regularly unites themes of ecology, geography, and exploration. When encountering my work, I hope to provide the recognition of a new path, vantage point, surface, or space. The balance between the formal and functional aspects of the work often elicit those interactions. I convey these ideas using ecologically-sensitive methods which emphasize notions of revitalization and resilience.
