Ode to a Whale
2023

In December of 2016 there was a large fragment of bone on the beach below Fort Funston. It was about three feet across, a gorgeous sculpture of curves and hollows.  There was a suture joint, so I knew it was a skull. There had been a beached carcass of a young blue whale down the beach a few weeks earlier, so this was likely from that whale.  I visited this bone over the following weeks, as the ocean rolled it over and wore it down, revealing different elements of this complex structure.  In the years since there have been more skulls or pieces of skulls on Bay Area beaches.  In 2022 there was a skull much closer to entire, about 4 feet across, and this one, according to a citizen scientist, was from a grey whale.  From these bones I’ve researched further online to try to learn some whale anatomy.

Bones are very specific in the way they are formed, based on the animal’s movement.  All living bone is dynamic and responsive to the pulling and pushing that its body experiences.  After the animal is dead, what is left is clear, touchable, and holds something of the life lived.  Slowly whale bones get worn down by waves, sand and stone.  They become inhabited by bacteria that color them and contribute to their dissolution into minerals to become part of the water and sand. 

This series is a chance for me to honor these massive bones and these giant animals that are cousins.  The first skull in 2016 revealed a foramen magnum (where the spinal cord passes thru to the brain) and occipital condyles (where the skull rests against the top of the spine.)  Our skulls also have these structures.  We mammals share much in our structure, even as we live vastly different lives. Whale ancestors were land dwellers. Then as they evolved they went back into the ocean to live, and reshaped their bodies to be fulltime swimmers.  A blue whale, the largest animal on earth, has two little vestigial pelvic bones – smaller than ours – that have little function in the ocean, but reflect their evolution. 

We don’t live without bones, and bones carry our story. Photographs gave me specificity to lean on, and from there I let the materials splash around within that structure to reveal something else.  These pieces are an elegy, a love letter, a reflection on living in a body.