Whale Fall is a ceramic artifact which delivers messages from humans to creatures beneath the ocean’s surface.
Whale Fall was born of the artist’s need to say she was sorry to a baby humpback whale she witnessed struck by a ferry, bleed to death and sink alone down into the darkness of the Puget Sound.
She carried Whale Fall onto the ferry, and as the boat carried her back to the site of the accident, she whispered to it of the joy seeing the whale breach ignited in her heart. And, through heaving sobs, the loss she felt when she saw him struck dead. She entrusted her story and her love and pain and above all, she told of how deeply, profoundly sorry she was that his life was cut short and that he had suffered. And then she dropped it to him, off the boat.
Whale Fall is an artifact that holds words and space for grief and translation. Messages are spoken into the vessel, translated into bubbles and slowly released through valves on the top as bubbles as the vessel sinks to the sea floor. Once the message has been released the artifact serves as temporary housing for those who gathered to consume the feasts of the whale’s corpse. When the corpse is gone the artifact serves as a memorial to the whale that fell.
