Cedar Floats, Sockeye and Coho Salmon
99cm
The centre of this buoy was donated to me by Lange, a salmon fisherman who works in Bristol Bay Alaska. He also runs an electronic logbook service called Deckhand that combines streamlined trip reporting and personal record keeping.
The top and bottom floats are from an old gillnet and are carved from cedar and painted with tar. Before plastic was common this is what fishermen used. They are heavier and can get damaged easier then plastic but they eventually degrade unlike plastic buoys used today. This piece represents the evolution and plasticization of this fishing float technology. It is hung on rope that I found washed up on a beach on Balaclava Island tied in a figure 8 knot and lashed with twine.
On this piece I have painted a bull kelp forest. This species of kelp has buoyant, carbon monoxide filled bulbs, which hold the fronds of this brown algae near the surface so it can photosynthesize. The long blades stream behind the bulb, rippling in the current. On sunny days, swimming through a kelp forest can feel like you are under a ceiling of golden stained-glass which undulates and sparkles with the moving water. I have also painted two of the species of salmon that live in our coastal waters, a sockeye and a coho. There are five species of salmon that inhabit the West coast of North America. Each species of salmon is incredible, from their epic migrations to their beautifully evolved bodies that change dramatically over the course of their lifespans. These fish are vital to the coastal ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest as well as to the Indigenous Peoples and settler peoples in this area. There are white plumose anemones and green surf anemones growing along the bottom with ochre and vermillion sea stars. Clinging to the stalks of the bull kelp are brightly coloured proliferating and brooding anemones and tucked into rocky crevasses along the bottom are green surf anemones.
The Ocean is the heart and lungs of our blue planet. It is a source of infinite beauty and wonder as well as providing us with a source of renewable nutrition. Let's return the gifts we receive from our watery world by taking care of what we put into it and what we take out of it.
Thank you for supporting the creation of art from waste, 10% of the purchase price of this piece of art will be donated to the Pacific Salmon Foundation, an organization that puts salmon first and supports all Salmon Communities on our coast.