Tidal Shift Award

This spring I had the honor of being awarded the Portland Museum of Art’s Tidal Shift Award for my painting “The Life of Water”. This award is described as being “for young artists who want to solve our climate crisis” and is awarded annually to six artists from 14 to 22 years old in two age categories. This past year over 900 artists submitted work from every state east of the Mississippi River. The winners are chosen by a panel of Maine-based Artists and climate activists including Samaa Abdurraqib, Sophie Davis, Darren Ranco, David Reidmiller, and Chandra Robinson.

Awardees are honored at an award ceremony and win $5,000, as well as having their artwork displayed in the Portland Museum of Art for several months. I was also recognized by my alma mater Mount Holyoke College in this article. It was so special for me to see my art displayed in the Art Museum which I grew up visiting, and I hope this is the first of many of my works displayed in museums.

I submitted my painting “The Life of Water” which was made specifically for the award. This is a gouache painting utilizing watercolor pencil for details on panel that I laser cut to a custom shape. I designed the panel using adobe illustrator and cut it in my school’s makerspace. The painting is one of my largest measuring 9 by 18 inches.

This painting highlights the intrinsic connection between humans and local sources of water, and discusses the importance of caring for local ecosystems. As climate change becomes more severe and has practical impacts of communities across the globe, much of the change has to do with shifts in water sources. Our body is aquatic in nature, and our health is reliant on access to clean water. Despite how essential this resource is, fresh water sources are being polluted and destroyed at an ever increasing rate; harming not only ourselves, but every plant and animal we see around us. Water is the base of every ecosystem, and its destruction is ours. All life is aquatic, and our form is defined by our water.

With this painting I consider the interconnectedness of human and landscape, and how survival is only obtainable through mutual cooperation. I emphasize the point that we can lead with love and intentional caring for our ecosystems. In this practice, I focus on themes of self-protection, community care, and the idea of person and landscape. This painting depicts the human body as a part of a water source, and considers how one cannot survive or exist without the other.

My hope for this painting is that in its time displayed in the Portland Museum of Art it was able to inspire viewers to more deeply consider how they access clean water, and how their actions impact the availability of fresh water.

Posing with the painting in the Portland Museum of Art on opening night with my moms Pat and Carolyn