WaterClock is an ecosystem of floating gardens and vessels that guide water in a continuous, cyclical flow. Water drips from elevated points into steel trays, ceramic bowls, and limestone basins, making a soft, meditative sound that recalls muffled drums and wind chimes. This rhythmic flow reflects the cycles of life and death, with water as metaphor and medium, carrying memories and honoring those who have passed.
The WaterClock is a quiet memorial. Water flows step by step down through each vessel, reflecting the passage of time, before it gathers below and rises again. Mythological traditions often view water as a conduit between realms; here, it carries stories across these thresholds, reminding visitors of the legacies that endure beyond physical presence.
Two canoes float above and grow perennial hanging gardens. These vessels carry memories, and reinforce water’s role as a bridge between worlds. Together, these elements form an immersive experience, one where the visitor steps into a flow of time and reverence and sits with the WaterClock, guided by water as a perpetual keeper of memory.
Water Body Water Time at the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut
Water Body, Water Time is a time-based sculpture of an ecosystem on life support. Its steel framework holds biochar and limestone bowls that catch water through medical tubing to that supports perennial plants. Water Body, Water Time feels like the first time I’ve addressed getting sick from celiac so head-on in an artwork, it’s a water clock with biochar and lime pouring bowls that clean water as it cycles through a body. I was using tubing and trays that resembled the medical kind, and it wasn’t until I was building this sculpture that I connected it to the year I spent mostly in the hospital and the tension of the machines pumping fluids into my body, the illness and subsequent recovery strikes me now.
Like the rivers and waterlines the work references, the human body is part of the same larger cycle—one that includes sickness, healing, and eventual transformation. So it’s not just a meditation on the fragility of water-courses, but also on human fragility.
Lacrima, Musee, Trento Italy, 2023
Lacrima is a water clock that theoretically measures climatic time, based on the Dolomites and the Marmolada glacier. It is a slow performance, an invitation to reflect on the glacial waters that are quickly relocating, on the earth that soaks up this valuable resource, on the water tables that safeguard it in the ground and in time, and on the importance of ancient traditions and the custodians of our relationship with water. It was co-designed for the MUSE and is the result of a residency, many discussions with the museum’s scientists and people who took part in the "Un vaso per Mary" workshop with the vases made during the event.
