Discovered this website for birders today… 

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/

Over the next couple months we’ll be soliciting input on imagery and sounds for this project.  

What we’re looking for are ideas, images and sounds of native plants and animals of the Pacific Northwest that you see, hear, think about and/or love. 

For avid gardeners and plant enthusiasts, it might be a short list or photos of flowers, ferns, grasses, shrubs, ground covers, trees, etc. For bird watchers and animal lovers, these might entail lists, photos and/or field recordings of western migratory birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects, etc.  These could be common and abundant or scarce and endangered, it’s up to you…

Once we’ve collected the images and sounds, we’ll create digitized silhouette portraits that will then be laid out as a collage mural/tapestry. The resulting artwork will be a vinyl graphic that wraps around the hull of lifeboat. 

lark sparrow

phantom orchid

Lifeboat is an archetype, a cross-cultural universal symbol of human-powered water transport, a beacon boat, a vivid vessel, a cargo kayak, a star ship, a proverbial ark, a cedar dream…Brackett’s canoe, a Salish skiff, a Nordic clinker, a Chippewa raft, a Polynesian pontoon, a Swahili mtumbwi, an Uro totora, a Neolithic dugout…an intricately-patterned sculptural form…a brilliant torso, a floating totem…a stylus, quill, pen, brush, scribe…flickering, flying, floating, rowing, writing, drawing…

…a beautiful seawall that’s an iconic luminescent wayfinder, a topographical map, a landscape painting, a giant terrestrial print, an expressionist canvas, a fantastic fresco, a cognitive landscape or mythical map of Cascadia…a habitat mural, a meditation on a watery corner of the continent…an aerial view of watersheds, mountains and forests that signifies a gathering place for families, friends and neighbors.

Background research and community outreach informs my overall approach. The concept draws on documented regional history, current maps, and environmental issues, along with conversations with residents and business owners, meetings with stakeholder groups and numerous walks through Edmonds’ downtown, cultural district, waterfront and parks.

Building on this framework, strategies to solicit community input on the patterning of lifeboat and mapping of seawall include a survey and interactive blog that will collect descriptions, images and sounds of residents’ favorite area flora and fauna. The collected imagery will be digitized and incorporated into vinyl graphics affixed to wall and suspension. 

Cascadia expresses a relationship to the regional environment that brings viewers into a dialog between form and shape, color and pattern, light and shadow, sound and silence, biota and habitat. It strikes a balance between iconic universality and locational uniqueness, particularly as it relates to Edmonds’ extensive green infrastructure and vibrant downtown cultural district. The project encourages viewers to contemplate their place within the web of life of our shared natural world. Through the spatial relationship between an iconic lifeboat and a luminous seawall, the artwork will create a feeling of belonging to a larger bio-region, fostering a sense of caring for each other and our environs.