Emma Hurley: I was born on the ridgetop above the community of Point Arena. Growing up barefoot and tangle haired, I spent every possible moment exploring the wilds of river and woods with the ocean as an always steady backdrop. Summer was defined by sand between the toes and salt stained pant cuffs while the smell of washed up rotting bull kelp and the sound of loud surf characterized winters. As a teen, I took a workshop on the edible and medicinal uses of seaweed. I have included this local food source in my diet ever since along with the meditative quiet practice of early morning summer harvests.
Interest and love of the marine environment grew when I attended Prescott College, a liberal arts school valuing environmental and social consciousness and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Conservation Biology with a marine emphasis. Learning the scientific method via tide pooling in an intensive Marine Biology field course in Mexico, gave my summer for-fun tide pooling in Point Arena a whole new dimension of resourcefulness, understanding and ID skills. My love of the ocean turned obsession and life driving force when I learned to surf at age 22. Salt veins and more knowledge of tides, swells, weather and changes in the ocean around me than any goings on in the human world defined my 20s living in Santa Cruz. The rugged Point Arena coast always pulled at my heart, and I made the long-term move home in June 2016.
It took a little while living in Point Arena full time, for me to start noticing changes were occurring. Both the tide pools and the nearshore waters where I would go surfing were not the same. The smell of ‘’winter-ocean” was missing. My surfboards no longer had giant pressure dings on the underside, which were from hitting big bull kelp “heads”at high speed. The kelp was missing and disappearance dramatically changed our marine landscape. XXXX The decline of the northern California kelp forests began with a double event in 2013 and 2014: the sea star wasting disease virus and then the stationary warm water mass known as the Blob, both thought to be influenced by climate change. Our kelp forests off the Mendocino coast declined by 93 percent in just a handful of years. The deforestation of our kelp forests off my home waters, pulls at my heart. It makes me anxious for all the animal life I know and love living on this coast. The kelp is food but also shelter and protection for countless fish, birds, marine mammals and invertebrates. Even us surfers are impacted the kelp smooths the sea surface at certain exposed reaches that are now rarely possible to surf without the kelp forest acting as a swell filter.
I find myself featuring KELP and its associated ecosystem more and more in my artwork as I see less and less of it. On my functional wheel thrown pottery, I carve the tangled fronds of bull kelp that I barely now see on the ocean surface when I am surfing. I carve the threatened fish and understory seaweeds in the underglaze painted on my cups and bowls to pass my love of these on to those who end up with these pieces. NorthCoast Brine, my line of original art screen-printed apparel, is inspired by the life and environment of the cold brine waters off of Northern California. My goal with the apparel is to encourage ocean stewardship through giving the wearer a beautiful rendition of our native rockfish, invertebrates and kelp and knowledge of what these species are. In this July art show at CHAC, I hope to celebrate with you though my artwork the beauty of kelp and the life it supports.
Amanda Rose Pence: My work uses the visual language of color to create an emotional feel, which connects directly to the heart and mind. The use of bright sensual colors, occasional subdued hues, and earthy elements brings about a range of feeling tones. The series of sensual flower paintings are meant to wet the palette by exciting the visual senses with their extremely bright hues and complementary colors. The most subtle hues and purest feelings I encounter when in direct contact with nature. The intricate patterns, finely composed colors, and rounded shapes fuel a constant curiosity of the organic. Ecological elements are missing from this current linear realm humans have built from concrete and synthetic materials. Thus my intention is to bring an ecological aesthetic into "built space". My art strives to insert pieces of the earth herself into man-made settings. Recently my love of painting and landscaping has combined into mixed media paintings which use found moss, bark, and seaweed with sensuously colored oil paint, to create an eco-sexual explosion of the senses. Whether collage, painting, drawing, sculpture, or mixed media the art these hands create combines sensual colors with an environmental aesthetic with the intention of exciting the senses while encouraging an awareness of nature.
I am a delicate colorful flower inserting itself into the crack in the man made linear dimension. My roots stretch deep traveling to fertile soils where cars aren't heard in the distance and the stars shine to light the dark. My intention is to bring nature, color, and a bio-dynamic aesthetic into "built space". My art strives to insert the inspiration of nature with pieces of the earth herself into man made settings. The earth provides for our bodies, the colors of her flowers nourish our visual sense, and the earth's energy heals our spirits. So often we plug into our i-pods, cell phones, and computers. We forget that fulfillment can be found in the soil and plants around us. Humans strive to control nature feeling that domination will bring us closer to power. Yet there is so much energy in the elements that we lose when we strive for control. I strive to be the change and go back to the land for my materials, ideas, and insight. Seeking the ancient wisdom of our planet. Materials do not always need to be processed and bleached, they can be found in our backyards. Thus these pieces of bark, flower petals, snail shells, and willow branches are inserted into the square dimension of humanoid to show us a glimpse of the green world we once came from.
