With Each Passing Wave/Erosion, 2021

“The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.” - Blaise Pascal

With Each Passing Wave/Erosion is an ongoing series that began with the Erosion project. With Each Passing Wave documents drawings created in the sand by the Pacific tide in Costa Rica. Often visible only for moments before being swiftly erased by the ocean, the sand is rearranged, fractured by any rock, shell, or log on the beach into abstract shapes of trees, a human figure, or marks defined by the viewer. The perspective of the photographs, taken from above, is cartographic. The ocean tide was creating maps of the earth, quickly erased and now only existing in photographs. But, as my practice continued, I wondered, is the ocean drawing a memory?   

And is it possible to undo the marks I have left behind? I share these photographs to question and reconcile my behavior towards the environment I see as increasingly fragile and uncertain. In some photographs, the edge of a footprint on a drawing is visible—evidence of my or someone else's careless step in the natural world.    

Nature, our use of it, is a shared journey. Although we may not all walk the same path, we walk it on the same earth. Our typical behavior, careful or callous, impacts the fragile world where we live our stories.   The more we wonder about the earth, the more we evoke opportunities for change in our expected behavior and story.    

When photographing With Each Passing Wav/Erosion, I sometimes felt the ocean shouting at me. I am grateful to have paused on that beach and added to the existing dialogue on the environment with photography.   

– Jenny Carey, [2021]