Tide Child

Artist Statement: In Elementary School, my favorite field trip was always the annual beach day. Here, our teachers would give us a tide pool scavenger hunt, challenging us to explore the biodiversity of our beaches. I remember it clearly, the gray overcast, rubber boots, slippery rocks covered in algae and barnacles, and the joy of carefully lifting rocks to find whole ecosystems under them. Tide Child incorporates my two favorite tide pool dwellers, starfish and mussels. I used polymer clay to create the face and carefully embellished it with beads that I hand-beaded onto the starfish. I covered the body with mussel shells that I collected from my beaches. Additionally, I added a beaded trim to the fuzzy underbody.