Floating Libraries + Sailing Stones
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After more than six months of living along the edge of the deepest natural lake in Connecticut, my notions of drifting have shifted from a land-based walking practice to the possibilities of floating on or navigating bodies of water. The lake beyond my studio windows has become a backdrop of sorts for fluctuating atmospheric phenomena and movement sketches.
In addition to research that I have been doing on weaving my own simple mat or dried reed raft structures for future ‘floating (artifact) libraries’, I have also been investigating the Sailing Stones phenomenon documented in Death Valley National Park in California. Sailing stones on the Racetrack Playa of Death Valley leave horizontal tracks in the dried sediment surface, seemingly shifting location via their own volition. The trails left behind are mysterious traces of activity that occur with the formation of desert ice sheets that carry the stones to new coordinates as they melt.
Please follow along as these studio projects continue to evolve during the spring and summer of 2020.