Watermarks/Shorelines
Date: 2012
18×24 inches
Collage on Paper
Superstorm Sandy was a wakeup call to anyone who still doubts that extreme weather is part of our future—and our present! Damage to the East End of Long Island brought home the peril of living framed by the waters we so love and cherish. The seemingly fixed borders between land and sea, land and bays, and even land and ponds have proven malleable and mutable.
This installation treats the Parrish Art Museum’s exterior wall and grounds as canvases on which to trace the wavelike contours of our shifting shorelines. The museum’s south wall becomes both a timeline and a graph, tracing the high-water marks for each seaside village from the museum’s founding in the 1800s to the present. The colorless stains will fade over time—just as do our memories of traumatic events.
On the vast open field in front of the museum, “waves” of grasses advance from the highway perimeter toward the museum, like waves lapping up the shore. The grasses will be planted in successive bands over time, so that they creep closer and closer to the museum.
