Over the summer of 2022, I traveled several times from my home in Southern Oregon to the northeast corner of the state, exploring the Columbia River Gorge for a project with the Maryhill Museum of Art. The piece created for the museum project (lower on the page) was exhibited alongside eleven other sculptures in a month long outdoor event.
After its time in the sun overlooking The Great River, the sculpture returned to my studio where I stewed over it for months considering the best way to re-create the work. I settled on hand painting the silk surfaces of each rib with dye in a strata of blues and salmon that celebrates the Columbia River and the sacred fish that unites communities along its banks.
Wy-Kan-Ush-Pum: We are All Salmon People
Learn more: Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
• Ecosystem: A complex network or interconnected system.
• Antifragility: A property of systems in which they increase in capability to thrive as a result of stressors, shocks, volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks, or failures.
• Amplified Felt: Wool, hand felted into dense ribs onto the delicate weft of cheesecloth, sculpted.