JUNE 2016

So I headed to Alaska last month intending to carve wood.  Searching the beach for cool driftwood I came across swaths of crumbly black stuff that I initially thought was charcoal left from beach fires.  It turned out to be coal; a huge deposit under Homer is visible in the cliffs and chunks crash down onto the beach as the cliffs erode.  The town's founder and namesake made a futile attempt at coal mining and exporting (it was too low-quality to be worthwhile) and during tough times locals have gathered and burned the beach coal as a heat source of last resort. 
     At first I was just attracted to its aesthetic qualities--that deep color, unpredictable shapes, texture ranging from glass to crepe--but then as so often happens the material shot out a dozen sticky little tentacles, attaching itself to my life and my memories.  I think of this group of pieces collectively as "Seam," a nod to the way that