Why you will love Mermaid Wreaths: Wreaths need not be seasonal. They need not decay after a holiday ends. Rather than making wreaths that take branches and bows from the forest, I like the notion of making wreaths that pull trash from the ocean. Made entirely of repurposed ocean debris rope, these wreaths have already lived underwater. They've survived the tumultuous sea and have known an underwater world we can only dream of. This means many things, but one is that Mermaid Wreaths will survive the elements. They are more than equipped to live outside (or inside) year-round.
The core of these wreaths is rescued ocean rope coiled around itself. 3D coral-reefy elements are then knotted, wrapped, stitched, coiled, and occasionally melted before secured onto the rigid coil. These wreaths have a custom steel backing so that they'll sit flush with any surface. If needed, they can be washed with an outdoor hose and some soapy water. You'll find that, unlike fiber art made from natural fibers, fiber art made from plastics do not collect dust in the same way.
Mermaid Wreaths are purposefully designed with nods to their material origins. I've made a point to leave the marine debris rope visible as itself at points in each wreath. In part, I find this rope beautiful and capable of carrying some aesthetic weight. But, mostly I just want to leave narrative breadcrumbs for a curious viewer who might stop to question a point of origin.
Each Mermaid Wreath comes with written information about where its marine material has been collected (i.e. the specific beach that it came from), along with statistics about the pollutions and environmental degradation caused by plastic pollution in the oceans.
Why I make Mermaid Wreaths: In 2024, I shifted away from creating work that relied on manufactured plastic (in the form of waxed polyester cord). I instigated this transition because I found so much promise in working exclusively with repurposed marine debris rope, rescued from the ocean.
Thematically, my art foregrounds regeneration. And so, it seemed germaine to my project to work exclusively with detritus materials in need of revitalization.
Ocean rope is an extremely challenging material to use for the creation of fine art. It will take me years of working with it in order to be capable of the sort of fine-tuning I was able to accomplish with more pliable cotton. This is why, in large part, marine debris art tends toward decorative, functional, and folk art. I'm not asserting a hierarchy here. On the contrary, I think that marine plastics need rapid rendering by artists and craftspeople: there's a lot of this material with no place to go, and we need to work quickly to make as much as we can with it.
These "Mermaid Wreaths" propose a link between my earlier compositional, botanical organs and my marine debris art. They're a crucial step in the direction I'd like to take an an artist; and, as such, they give me the space to experiment tactically, technically, and compositionally.
Materials: Repurposed Marine Plastic (PVC), powder coated steel
Dimensions: Length 44" x Width 22" x Depth 5" x Weight 15 lbs
Hangs from a loop installed in the back
