Smoky Ink on the Water

“Smoke on the Water” is a pour embellished with brushed ink and watercolor on sized (“shu”) suan paper. The water tends to puddle on this kind of surface, and the pour created sort of an inky mess. In the early moments of the process nothing penetrated or connected with the fibers of the paper. I decided to rub off some of the pooled liquid, and as it thinned and spread, it reminded me of smoke dissipating into space. The next move was a little counter-intuitive. I took the inky surface, now dry, as a metaphor for pollutants in coastal water environments and used a fine brush to build out the narrative within and around the troubling scene.

Messaging in the work includes environmentalist concern for the interplay between fisheries in the foreground and farming in the background. You can see the Mattamuskeet lodge tower (in Swan Quarter, NC) in the distance because treatment/use of the land and the use/treatment of the water, their interaction, has been a long standing tension in this village community. My mother’s family comes from there and so I feel especially connected and concerned about the dilemma.