Of course I am saddened and discouraged by the amount of garbage we dump into the ocean. I need to say that, it cannot be said enough.

And yet, I am smitten by these barnacle covered bottles. They have an almost poetic quality. Though delicate, they have weathered the tides, currents and waves and survived unbroken. They tell a story of the barnacles and bivalves that have made homes on them and within them. They speak to me of a resilience of both the glass and the ocean – and maybe of ourselves as well.

These castaways seem closer to art than to garbage.

My plan is to fill a large canvas with hundreds of these bottles, in one of what I’m coming to think of as my “object field” paintings. I hope my bottles will convey a message of protest and hope and awe.