Stellar and Silver
80 cm
The plastic buoy on this piece was donated to me by a salmon fisherman from Bristol Bay Alaska. The top and bottom floats are from an old salmon gillnet; they were carved from a cedar block and then painted with tar to make them last longer. Before plastic was common this is what fishermen used here on the coast. The wooden floats are heavier, more expensive and can get damaged easier than the modern, cheaper plastic buoys but they eventually degrade unlike plastic ones used today and are rare to come by. The wooden floats were donated to me by a retired fisherman, the line this piece hangs on was donated to me by a halibut fisherman.
On this float I have painted a stellar sealion and a smack of moon jellyfish in a kelp forest on a sunny day. A school of herring also swim through the forest and sparkle silver and gold in the sunlight. Herring return each spring to the coastal waters all along the BC coast to spawn. This is an incredible sight, their milt turns the North Pacific waters Caribbean blue and their eggs are laid thick on kelp, sea grass, rocks and sometimes even crabs that stand too still for too long. Animals all over the coast feast themselves on this golden buffet and the proliferation of life is and incredible sight. The buoyant carbon monoxide filled bulbs of the kelp, hold the fronds of these brown algae near the surface so they 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. These kelp forests provide important habitat for many juvenile marine species on our Pacific Coast and are an essential part of a healthy marine ecosystem. I have also painted ochre sea stars, proliferating and brooding anemones, plumose anemones and vermillion sea stars.
10% of the purchase price of this piece will be donated to the Ucluelet Aquarium’s Marine Debris Research Initiative