The final part of my art + words series ORIGIN STORY is up at Gulf Coast. DOLOS examines my fraught history with water, estranged family relationships, how we’re irrevocably changing the planet.
I’ve seen breakwater works all over the world, often crude blocks of rock or cement dropped in shallow waters as a deterrent, or used to help create jetties. Here, I’m stunned not just at the quantity of dolosse, but how they seem to halo the island, as ubiquitous as sand and rock and trees and rain. I lean up from the back seat of the tour van and ask the driver if he knows about them, how old they are, if he has any information about them.
He doesn’t know what I’m talking about at first, so I point to a dolos, then the scores of others we pass. East of us, a storm is darkening the sky. The waves are violent and crashing. He says, laughing, “They protect us from god.”
Read Part 1 (Purple)
Read Part 2 (Wood)
Read Part 3 (Pigeon)
