The below video shows an edited, real time, documentation of the event. I created a water system that slowly dispersed water into the top of the fabric. The temporarily affixed pigment bled out over time and the excess murky water dripped out onto the floor. Eventually the water evaporates and only a trace of the event remains. This piece started off my graduate thesis research of connecting the personal loss of my mother to a growing concern for water quality.

The initial idea for this water system came from an urge to have water physically present during the viewing of the work. As the work becomes saturated, the fabric glows. The system uses gravity as the only means of releasing the water.

Below is another iteration where the water system was suspended behind a half wall with only the fabric and the hanging mechanism visible from the front. Here you can see the difference in saturation between wet and dry fabric.

I completed several versions of this type of work. Below are some remnants of fabric pieces after their water systems were complete.

THESIS WORK, APRIL 2022

everywhere i go, you go, 2022 

Gainesville rainwater, pigments, salt, cotton fabric, tubing, buckets, gravity 

15x7x2 ft

To experience this work is to watch it slowly, irreversibly change. Collected rainwater travels through clear tubing and into the fabric. This reverse painting system washes away temporarily affixed pigment. Fluid-filled fabric, like fluid-filled lungs — something I briefly experienced while swimming in the ocean with my mother, and what ultimately killed her as she lost against lung cancer. The murky blue mimics the depths of the north Atlantic ocean where we would swim together. The slow bleed mesmerizes; a clear sense of time blurs. Gravity is a collaborator. As the fluid drips out onto the floor a dark puddle of water seeps into the viewer’s space, eventually evaporating. 

This water system creates connections between our essential need for water and unavoidable loss. Our waterways are deeply interconnected, from local streams to global oceans. How we treat our larger water systems directly affects our bodies. The flow is unpredictable, similar to that of a flooded river, and small particles are picked up and carried down. This mirrors the things we hold on to and carry with us throughout our lives. The loss of pigment on the fabric is the result of inevitable entropy. It is a flowing transformation, from loss to acceptance, hope, and wonder for the future.