Coos Art Museum 2025

After having a few weeks to decompress after our Lincoln City installation came down, the PNW Community Coral Reef has been invited to the Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay, Oregon for an installation running from May 9th through August 3rd, 2025.

What's so great about this project is how the reef is different in every installation. When we have the space to stretch out, the reef can be displayed on a variety of plinths and risers. For this installation, the gallery space is limited and my thought are to utilize the walls and ceiling. Instead of creating an open room experience of a coral reef, I hope to create a cave or cocoon-like experience. Corals on the floor and walls, creatures and kelp coming from the ceiling and a small pathway to walk through.

Since many of our pieces are vignettes and are connected, this entails picking the pieces that are best suited to life on the floor and bringing them along. Other pieces will be dismantled and turned into wall hangings. Additionally, I have started a couple jumbo sized bull kelp to see if they might be happy in this new configuration.

I've already visited the space, paced it out, wondered aloud and scratched my head a few times. My next plan is to visit a couple of nearby sea caves at low tide, just to get myself in the mood.

Onwards!

Ready for Lincoln City!

Our “rewind” installation is ready to go in Lincoln City and I have to say, it is the best one yet. With bridges and pillars covered in corals, visitors can walk beneath the corals and get a true immersive experience.

The opening reception is Friday August 9th from 5-7 and the exhibit runs through October 13th.

Up Close With the PNW Community Coral Reef

Over the past few years of working with the pieces of the PNW Community Coral Reef, I have played around with photographing, and having them photographed, in different ways. Imagine my excitement when I found out that a coworker of mine was a macro photographer!

I think it’s always good to have a few wide shots of a reef installation but the real magic happens when you stop and look deeply. I hope that this series of macro shots can reveal the hidden beauty of our reef.

Kelp Fest and Coral Klaxons!

The opening at the Mendocino Art Center for Kelp Fest was very enjoyable and the Mendocino area, including Fort Bragg, was lovely. And as a fan of crazy yard art, the huge blue whale in the front of someone’s home was fantastic!

Now that I am back in Oregon, the reality of the last month of the PNW Community Coral Reef at the Willamette Heritage Center is sinking in. While we will be moving the reef to the Eugene Textile Center immediately after Salem closes, the next show in Lincoln City, which starts in early August, is looming. The plan to build some bigger structures for the reef in the textile studio means that we will need more hyperbolics.

So I am sounding the klaxon now!!!

We can take both healthy and bleached corals. Let me know if you are planning to make some!

Little Otters and Kelp Forests

While the PNW Community Coral Reef is on display at the Willamette Heritage Center, I will be heading down to Mendocino, California tomorrow for the opening of North Coast Kelp Fest and the opening reception at the Mendocino Art Center where Little Otter will be displayed alongside some absolutely beautiful kelp related art.

Little Otter will not be for sale while at the North Coast Kelp Fest but will be a part of the Art Auction in Newport, OR on September 28th to benefit the Elakha Alliance and the restoration of sea otters on the Oregon Coast. Subscribe to their newsletter to keep in the loop!

Swimming in the Sea

It’s an interesting revelation after working on marine related fiber art for eight or nine years, that I have been slowly investigating the different ecosystems of the ocean as I create my different pieces and facilitate the PNW Community Coral Reef.

Being subsumed by coral reefs for three years + has allowed me to learn so much about coral reef ecosystems and the intricacies of their inhabitants. I do make good faith efforts to be biologically accurate in my work and I will do deep dive research before starting a new creature or form. It made the switch to the kelp forest an interesting adventure as I wrapped up our first coral reef installation and started in on Little Otter. I knew I wanted to speak about the kelp forests but it wasn’t until I saw the call for art from the Elakha Alliance that I considered putting a sea otter into the piece and donating it for their fundraiser this fall.

As someone who knows I will never be able to financially support all the causes for ocean conservation, restoration and preservation that I care about, choosing an organization to help with each of my pieces makes me feel a little more useful in this world.

After doing a deep dive into the kelp forests, I am now heading to the deepest of depths with my Deep Sea Triptych. This is something that I have talked about before and I purchased the three huge canvases three years ago at the beginning of the PNW Community Coral Reef Project. It has been started, delayed, and denied until now. Even with our next installation for the coral reef looming in a few weeks, I managed to finally start the first of the three canvases last weekend. This has not only thrown me into searching out fingering weight yarns for an 18 feet x 5 feet space but also delving into the anatomy of a giant squid and sperm whale, the ecosystem of the deepest ocean, and thrilling imaginings of two colossal creatures doing battle miles below the surface. I have been learning about the threats to the deep ocean environment and again, I have been upset and saddened at the human threat to these darkest regions. I have also been ruminating on the very notion of struggle.

This piece will be enormous. This piece will take many more years to complete. And this piece will narrate the story of a colossal struggle, a fight to the finish, that no human eyes will have witnessed in real time. I have a feeling that I am talking about a squid, a whale, and so much more.