Love Letters from the Ocean

The ocean has always brought me a sense of nostalgia.

Shells wash ashore, leaving behind mere fragments of what was once whole. They erode and weather down to reveal the most unique surfaces: a beauty that can only be earned through time. I have a fascination for collecting these fragments, arranging them as though it were an archival process. My arrangements reflect my experiences in herbariums. I study them, looking for all of the modulations and luminosities that I can translate into ink and water. I hold them up to the sunlight, I use them in my lumen prints. The sun reveals an inner beauty for the most insignificant looking shells. There is something romantic about using the processes of the sun. It leaves evidence of once having been there. Memories. Each tile of the lumen calendar reflects a day and the memories that come with it. Some are faded and dull, some are sharp and bright. The purples, yellows, and pinks become sunrises and sunsets — days passing by. It adds up to a life. The lumen prints are physical manifestations of memories, but memories fade. And just as memories fade, the purples and pinks of the prints are slowly fading to gray. The ephemerality of my work is what keeps me in it, wanting to stay just a little longer, because I know that tomorrow it will not be the same.

The ocean has a sense of eternity, but you can never step in the same ocean twice.