Exhibit Statement:

holdfast | ˈhōl(d)fast | 

noun 

(Most common usage to least common usage) 

- Biology a stalked organ by which an alga or other simple aquatic plant or animal is attached to a  substrate. 

- a staple or clamp securing an object to a wall or other surface. 

- a firm grip. 

The natural world is the core of my work, as subject and as process. Since 2013,  I have researched the ocean and come to understand climate change as it unfolds  under the surface of the seas. It is the knowledge of how these elements work that  fuels my imagery. Working intuitively and in partnership with natural elements, I  incorporate chance into the process of making the work -- I draw with a hyper saturated sea salt solution, and as the water evaporates, sea salt crystals grow in  seemingly random patterns.  

Holdfast is an elegy and homage to the giant kelp forests -- or ‘cathedrals of  the sea’. These kelp forests – which can reach 175 feet high -- are one of three  ecosystems that feed much of young marine life around the world. Over the last  eight years, a high percentage of these forests have collapsed in cascade, or  extinction events, after decades of global warming. Tasmania and northern and  central California have been especially hard hit, and other varieties of kelp forests  around the world have been decimated, not to return. 

This exhibition is named after holdfasts, the root-like structures that anchor the  giant kelp forests to the rocky floor of the ocean. The giant kelp holdfasts provide  essential structure for an ecosystem that supported many forms of life. They represent  where we are in the climate change process: our holdfasts are still in place. How long  they will last is an open question, 

Kelp forests protected the shore from the fierce waves caused by massive  storms over the ocean. But on occasion, the most turbulent storm might unmoor a  holdfast and its kelp, and they will drift together until – with luck -- they find a place to  re-anchor. 

By definition, a holdfast is also a tool, like a clamp, used on a workbench to  keep something stable and secure when it is being worked on. For me, holdfasts  represent strength, resilience, the possibility of hope and sustaining future life. We all  need holdfasts that will help us weather storms or give us a chance to re-anchor on  firmer ground.