Revisions on a Moraine
As a volunteer artist for Olympic National Park’s Terminus Project, I created a visual testimony to one of the park’s shrinking or vanished glaciers— The White Glacier on Mt. Olympus.
Explore ONP’s Terminus Storymap
on an axis now eroded roots become branches, wings, constellations, a carpet. butterflies float on a glacier’s dying breath.
inquiries:
how will we change when we taste air instead of ice?
what becomes along the succession of exposed ground?
tracing these new paths, do we listen, move, or see differently?
Process video
Artist Statement
A moraine is the material left behind by a moving glacier, usually rock and sediment. Each is unique and evolving. Visit a moraine in the Olympics, and you may find yourself in a crowded rainforest, on the border of a cold clear lake, or perched high above a U-shaped rocky valley.
As the White Glacier retreats up her valley onto the shoulder of Mt. Olympus, she grooves and terraces the land, leaving behind not only rock and sediment, but sites of possibility.
In this collage, accumulated material is left behind, just as a moraine is formed. Woodcut prints offer the concrete silhouettes of seracs and trees. Watercolor paintings volunteer the hues of shifting climate and hydrology. Collaged, these sinuous ribbons weave together potential futures for the moraines of the White Glacier and ask: what roots/routes will we encounter in these changing spaces?
Learn more about this glacier on the Olympic National Park site