25 Years on Water
Published in Women Eco Artists Dialogue,
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Water is a human right. Water is an earth right. Water is the right to life.
Water ripples, splashes, soothes, tumbles, sings, meanders, caresses, pounds and thunders. Water is perhaps the most aggressive creative force on earth. It is the foundation of life.
I. KNOWING WATER
My art practice has been one of evolving consciousness about myself and the role of art. For nearly 30 years, water has been at the heart of this practice. During the Feminist movement in the early 70’s I began performing and leading workshops, creating an art practice to empower others and myself. My adventures with water began after a US cross-country trip in 1984, where I saw many dry riverbeds. These riverbeds revealed to me the dried bones of the earth, beautiful and disturbing. This inspired the project “A Memory of Clean Water.” I cast 250 feet of the Castle Creek riverbed in Utah using hand-made paper. It was during this project, late in the day, as the stars appeared unhampered by nearby urban areas that I noticed that the patterns of the stars in the Milky Way had an uncanny similarity to the patterns in the dry riverbed. I thought, everything is patterned by water and I know nothing of water.
The next day I learned that the waters in this sparsely settled valley were polluted from mining and agricultural run off. I resolved to learn about water. Ever since, I have become increasingly involved with those H2O molecules, the most flexible, creative, and resilient molecule.
A Memory of Clean Water (1985)