Meriel Stern

Knowledge of the biota of our habitat is gleaned from the fossil record found in the rocks and quarries of California, and the sea bed showing an array of creatures that have existed and adapted to changes in their environment. Variety and adaptation are the key to continuing life, including ours.
I am interested in the morphological processes of composition, transformation and decomposition of all living things, and the aesthetic similarities of these processes in Nature. I propose a circular wall installation to be called “Domestic Accreta” composed of forms based on the local marine ecology found in biogenic sediments and mud flats of California. Crocheted forms will be enrobed in clay and fired, leaving a vitreous “relic” of their past, much as coral is a skeleton of the living creature that once grew under the sea allowing us to reflect upon not only upon narrative connections, but upon our collective domestic condition, and creating a kind of index of previous gestures.