Chilkat Sampler
Assemblage, 2018
Comprised of elements found along the Chilkat River Corridor: various stones, granite slide material from Kalwaltu Village Site (19 mi.), moose hair, lichen samples (Tahini River tributary), log jam sticks, Upper Chilkat water sample (Kelsall Road boat launch), moose vertebrae, salmon vertebrae, reeds, river-ground detritus, soil samples (glacial silt deposit, eulachon pit, sandbar), unidentified juvenile fish (possibly stickleback), spruce grouse skull.
Purchased by the Haines Sheldon Museum for their Permanent Collection with funding through the Rasmuson Foundation.
Originally part of a multi-artist exhibit entitled "Watershed" at the Haines Sheldon Museum. The show included works focused on expressing the importance of local watersheds and current threats to their conservation.
Statement:
Local watersheds have fed and employed me. That is the tangible and measurable. What is intangible is the internal impact of experiencing an intact wild system: one orients and prioritizes their world at the influence of not just an environment that is natural, but one that is allowed to be bigger than us. Interconnection and relationship are not just concepts; protecting the watershed protects the heart. Globally, it is now an exclusive privilege to be even some small part of such wild-ness, and we get to live here.
