Drawings done with the high tide and low tide water collected from a single point in the Lower Hudson River, NY, 2026


In the summer of 2026, I was given an opportunity to intimately immerse myself in the tidal rhythm of the Lower Hudson River, a 153-mile estuary with a moving salt front that connects to the Atlantic Ocean. Its brackish water swells up on the shores of the river twice each day, reminding us of the connections between the land, the water, and the sky.

As a way of contemplating the cyclical rhythm of tidal waterways, I bottled the river water at the highest point and the lowest point on a single day at the same location in Tarrytown, NY, in two separate aqua glass jars. The water from the low tide was siltier than the high tide water that was clearer and also supposed to have higher salinity.

Despite my rather scientific endeavor to control the water, the glass jar containing high tide water was accidentally broken in the studio the next day. In a way, I thought it was fitting that the swelling water broke out of the containment. Following the water's direction, I didn't clean it up but marked its contour and let it dry on the concrete floor. Over the next several days, the water was gradually absorbed into the concrete and while also evaporating, leaving salt crystals on the floor—a salt front of its own.

Now left with the low tide water without its intended pair, I started questioning the idea of containment itself. (Some of the remaining high tide water and the entirety of the low tide water I had gathered was transferred into different glass bottles at this point.) Questions about what the water would want occupied my thoughts. Does it want to flow? If so, to where? Each day from then on, I poured a small amount of the low tide water onto a cascading sequence of white watercolor paper until the bottled water ran out. 


This work was created during the Parent Artist Residency at the Pocantico Center by the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation.