PHOTOGRAPH

Tricolored Heron (Egretta tricolor)

Easily identified by the long white stripe down the middle of its neck, the Tricolored Heron, once known as the Louisiana Heron, is a beautiful bird. They tend to dance around when hunting, darting back and forth in shallow water when tides are low, but in a more controlled, seemingly choreographed manner than their Reddish Egret counterparts.

In a more lazy, but undeniably smart move, they sometimes trail behind a hunting Cormorant or Grebe and snatch up any fish that escape the clutches of the first mouth. While growing up, Tricolored teens can get quite uppity. They commonly snap and lunge at their parents when they arrive with food, behavior that compels parents to arrive with sticks as gifts, perhaps in an effort to mellow out the kids. Nests are also made of sticks as they build platforms in the tops of mangroves or other trees.

LOCATION

The Wakodahatchee Wetlands

The Wakodahatchee Wetlands park is located in Delray Beach, FL. It spans across a fifty acre lot, with a three-quarter mile boardwalk that includes multiple gazebos, benches, and informational signage. There are open ponds, marshy areas, mangrove islands for roosting, as well as a wooded area. Formerly utility land, the wetlands were developed as a natural means of managing wastewater. Palm Beach County’s Water Reclamation Facility pumps around two million gallons of water into the park daily. This water is treated, yet still contains excess mineral content. Here in the wetlands the water is naturally purified by the flora of the park and released back into the surface water supply.

Every visit, I see so much life and have yet to be disappointed. Over 150 species of birds have been spotted here as well as turtles, rabbits, and alligators. In the spring you can see large numbers of roosting Wood Storks with their young as well as many young Snowy and Reddish Egrets and Tricolored Herons, stumbling about in the tops of Red Mangroves. Anhingas are ever present, diving for fish or sunbathing atop a perch, wings outstretched. Red-winged Blackbirds chase each other through the tops of tall grasses while Swamp Hens and Gallinules weave through their stems, probing for their next meal.

FRAME

Pecky Cypress (Taxodium distichum)

Known as Bald Cypress, this giant of the swamp is native to the southeastern United States. It can adapt to thrive in a wide range of soils, including very briny, salty, and water soaked areas. The pecky nature of the wood is created by a fungus that attacks the tree and eats away at its truck from the inside out. When the tree is cut down the fungus dies and leaves behind the beautiful architecture of its destruction. All of the Bald Cypress I have used in my frames has come from different parts of Louisiana.

THE ELEMENTS

Fire, Water, Earth, and Air

In the display case in the bottom of the frame, four items are in preserved glass vials. The items represent the elements: fire (wood charcoal), water (mineral oil), earth (soil), and air (a milkweed seed). I include these items in my work as a symbol of the interconnectedness of all life on Earth, and as a reminder that humans must do better.

THE PLAQUE

Magnetic Information Plaque

I engrave a wooden information plaque for each work. The plaque includes what the photograph is of, the location of the photograph, what type of wood the frame is made of, and where I sourced the wood. The plaques also explain why the vials are included in each work. The back of each plaque states the meaning of my logo: “The circle represents our home, Planet Earth. The hourglass represents time. The five horizontal lines in the bottom of the hourglass represent the five mass extinction periods that have occurred in the past. The single line falling through the hourglass represents our current mass extinction period, caused by us.” The plaques are attached magnetically and can be removed to read or to store on the back of each frame if you prefer not to have it displayed on the front.