Vessels and Growth

© Catherine Nash "Spiral"

I used to say that I was an ocean person, having grown up near the water’s edge, practically raised on a sailboat by my sea-loving father.  I learned to play with the wind in sails, reading the path of approaching gusts across the water. For almost thirty years now, I’ve lived in an arid desert land where the beds of rivers and streams are almost always dry sand, drawn to the expansive, silent space.

There’s something intriguing about dreaming of boats in the desert. They take on mythical proportions and connotations. Boats are immersed in my childhood memories of no-time; they remain deep in my inner life.   A boat can symbolize the ephemeral “skin” conjuring up the boundary of our being and journeying through time and space. There was a specific moment when my art started "sprouting", when my sculptures "grew" foliage.  As a child, I fell deeply in love with plants. As an adult, I experience incredible wonder at the sheer bravado of a tendril of green, of new growth from the desert floor.  Hope exists in tiny green leaves.