Sasha Samuels

What defines a landscape? When we think of landscape, what comes to mind? A beautiful hillside? A cultivated garden? Or a painting? A closer look at the word’s origin reveals the following:

The term landscape comes from:

     landshaft — German

     landshap — Dutch

     landskip — English

lendh2– open land, heath, prairie; skep– to cut, scrape, to hack, form, creation (<“cutting”): shape.

To form, cut, or otherwise shape the land.

Uffington White Horse
Image source: Wikipedia

If the literal translation is used, then a beautiful example is the prehistoric Iron Age Uffington White Horse in Berkshire Downs, England. Over 350 feet long, the image of a stylized horse was deeply cut into the hillside some 3,000 years ago and the incised area filled with chalk. To this day, local residents maintain the crisp imagery by refilling the original trench cuts with fresh chalk.

Open land + creation

La Strada Giu’
Plein air oil on canvas

La Strada Su
Plein air oil on canvas

Il Monumento
Plein air oil on canvas

Landscape painting is a creation by an artist’s relationship to the land, either directly or indirectly. After many years of plein air painting, I noticed a theme emerge in my choice of landscape subject matter; virtually all the imagery depicts views of the land with either roads or agricultural fields cut into it; a ubiquitous example of human’s relationship with nature.

While conventional definition states “a view of the sea or artwork depicting such”, one could extrapolate “scape” from landscape “to scrape, cut, hack, form, create shape”  and apply that to the sea. What might that look like?

Gargano I, Italy
Plein air watercolor

Gargano II, Italy
Plein air watercolor

 

Coccolithophores are an oceanic nanoplankton so small they can only be seen through an electron microscope. They create, extrude, then cover themselves with tiny, beautiful plates made of calcium carbonate, and in these plates, sequester about half the CO2 in our oceans.

The sea floor is covered with trillions of these plates, called coccoliths. Over millions of years, these coccolith sediments compress into chalk and limestone. Uplifted, they become part of our landscape, sometimes mined or quarried. In addition to being used for stone building or sculpture, limestone (and chalk) can be found in the production of cement and ceramic glazes.

Some coastlines are made up of these materials (the White Cliffs of Dover are chalk), and there are outcrops along the California Coast, including south of San Gregorio Beach. The town of Davenport housed a cement factory with eight limestone quarries.

Nanoplankton Discosphaera
Image source: JRYoung SEM colln plankton

Ocean Acidification

Unfortunately for coccolithophores, many species do not fare well in an increasingly acidic environment. A healthy ocean environment with a balanced pH creates aesthetically beautiful coccoliths; elevated Ph levels cause disfigured, brutal forms. Climate change and ocean acidification may have a catastrophic impact on the nanoplankton’s survival, and hence their ability to capture and sequester carbon from the earth’s atmosphere. This is not good.

Coccolith morphology as acidification and warming increases
Credit: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB)

Project Discosphaera

Giving voice to the sea and inspired by my research on coccolithophores, I will create a large scale permanent metal, stone and incised ceramic tile installation large enough to be visible from the air.

The project is called Discosphaera, named after a coccolithophore that when under stress, secretes trumpet-like plates, reminiscent of Gabriel’s trumpet in historical artworks. Installed on an exposed meadow and combining regional geology, marine biology, mathematics, and my 3-D skills, the installation will include informative ceramic tiles and materials will include fossil coccoliths themselves. 

Mitigating climate change will take every one of us and I welcome dialog with interested parties.

Jewelry Objects

 

Paintings

 

Sculpture

 

Artist Information

• Curriculum Vitae
• Biography
• LinkedIn Profile

Bibliography

• Djerassi Resident Artists Program
• Uffington White Horse
• Limestone and Dolomite Resources of California
• Santa Cruz County List of Stone Quarries
• What is a Coccolithophore? Fact Sheet
• Discosphaera tubifera
• Ocean warming and acidification impact on phytoplankton
• Sensitivity of coccolithophores to carbonate chemistry and ocean acidification