To See a Dawn, 2025
Coated metal, fabric, and projected light on wood panels.

‘To See a Dawn’ features an array of glyphs that draw on imagery and events from each key learning within the exhibition. Petroglyphs and Pictographs are a historic part of our connection to the land, our relationships with nature, and telling the story of place across time. These contemporary glyphs are presented alternating between two states. At one extreme, the glyphs are underwater. As in the story of the River of Life, they are in constant change and movement. At the other extreme they are still and bathed in the dawn light, much of the time, they are somewhere in-between.To See a Dawn is an homage to the petroglyphs and pictographs inundated in the dam building era, where at numerous sites throughout Washington, glyphs were drowned by humans to take the life force from the river and convert it to energy. Dams, like other human constructions, are not permanent. We can and do, tear them down. Currently the waters are still risen, but in time they can also recede and reveal the records of our ancestors.

Commissioned by the Washington State History Museum.

This is Native Land, Washington State History Museum, Tacoma, WA