Collaboration

I love collaborating with other artists and creators. I’ve admired Rant’s photography for a long time and when we talked about doing a shoot, I knew that they could help me to fulfill my desire to merge with the ocean and visually tell a story about life under the sea and our connection to it.

The day before, the low tide had been such a beautiful gift in helping me to collect a bucket full of beautifully diverse kelp and seaweed which we used during the shoot.

We went to Seahurst park early on a warm morning and were greeted with a very low tide, which allowed us to use the rocks and kelp beds as a playground for exploration. I can’t wait to share more of these images and incorporate them into this collection and installation I’m creating.

Explorations

I used the kelp that I retrieved from the beach to continue my exploration of textures that I am intending to use for an interactive, sculptural piece to be a part of the installation of this work. For a year now, I’ve been working to create textures out of various mediums, and for these works, I wanted these textures to be reminiscent of these life forms.

I was interested in making molds of the kelp but I needed make them stiff so that I could layer them with latex to create the mold. I tried various methods to do this…you can see the process below. After I created the molds, I created the skins using the materials that I’ve been exploring.

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It’s still a work in progress, creating this structure, but it’s been a fun exploration.

Journeying

“Sometimes I wish I could photosynthesize.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

I began reimagining the kelp forests as their own worlds and what an abstract version of connection to those worlds would look like.

Taking the wide range of colors, shapes and textures and working intuitively, I created a couple of womb-like portals into these worlds as working drafts for bigger pieces. These were made with watercolor, watercolor pencil, and high-flow acrylic paint.

I began incorporating some of my poems into my work, viewing them as a helpful part of the journey.

Words and textures

As a way of releasing and exploring my pain, I also began writing more and sharing my writing.
I had often written stream of consciousness poetry, but now I began to incorporate it into my art and also share it on social media.

The entire universe 

Is waiting 

For you to

Exhale

— Esther Loopstra

I began to create more biomorphic vingettes using acrylic mediums and collaging them into my work.

The world of kelp

“I wonder if much of what ails our society, stems from the fact that we’ve allowed ourselves to be cut off from that love of and from the land.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

As I visited the ocean, my obsession began to focus on kelp, seaweed, and algae as a metaphor for connection, origin, and home.

Kelp forests, like the one in the Pacific Northwest, serve as a habitat and ecosystem for an enumerable number of fish and invertebrates. They are not plants, but a colony of sorts…a group of organisms dependent on each other. These organisms are thought to have appeared 5 to 23 million years ago and are possibly the reason that early humans settled in the areas where these forests were prevalent.

We have been dependent on these beings for survival and have grown and developed alongside them. We came from the ocean. We came from water. Is there is a part of us that might feel like we still belong?

Early Inspiration

“Am I part of the intelligence of this planet? Does something live in me that goes beyond the entrapment of civilization as we know it?… I wondered if there is any inherent wisdom, and if it could teach me how to become human.” — Emilie Conrad, Life on Land

As my depression grew deeper, I began to visit the ocean more often. I began to find more meaning and connection in the videos and photo inspiration that I took, somehow feeling like I was a part of these beings. Thinking about the connectedness of us as humans to our environment and the wisdom that it holds.

At the same time, I was finding inspiration in the studio, playing with new works on paper in a biomorphic style that was new to me. These seemed as if they were a reflection of the natural world I was connecting to.