Rope Team, 2018–2021
unglazed ceramic (clay harvested from Oakland, CA + Atlin, BC and commercial clay), video, digital postcards

The past four years I have spent my summers living and working on alpine glaciers and the coastal channels of Southeast Alaska. This work is extremely physical, and has fostered a deep inquiry of how my own body is interacting with the geologic systems at hand. The rope systems I have learned during this time are a reminder of the precarity of human relationships, every knot dependent on the next.

To traverse across a glacier I must first tie myself into a rope team, literally tethering myself to others for safety. From a bird’s eye view, we become a constellation of connected bodies gently bending across the surface of the ice, winding ourselves around blue crevasses. On the water we travel through ocean channels and I learn to hitch our boat to docks, help toss crab pots overboard and cast a long line for halibut. Every night I mend the same rip in my pants, using a new knot each time to see if it will hold.

Back in my studio, during the process of attempting (often failing) to tie knots out of clay, I recall mountaineering and marine rope systems from muscle memory: an alpine butterfly, figure eight on a bight, double fisherman’s, prusik, bowline, clove hitch, overhand... During a time of isolation, upheaval, and uncertainty, I hope these knots might serve as a reminder of our connection to each other, and to larger earth systems we depend upon.

all images courtesy of Bedford Gallery