Hudson Flotsam

I collaborate with Muhheakantuck — “the river that flows two ways” — the Hudson. From West 100th Street in Manhattan up to Inwood Park, the riverbank is covered with driftwood and discarded materials of all kinds, by the thousands. I call this “Hudson flotsam,” and it’s my medium of choice. The river is a tidal estuary that changes direction four times a day, so any piece could conceivably come from anywhere. Some remain for many seasons; others disappear by the next full moon — much like New Yorkers.

About once a week, I find a coconut. It may have been thrown from a yacht docked in Hoboken, carried from distant shores, or placed deliberately along the living bank of a timeless river. Alongside driftwood, there are offerings and memorials of many kinds: bouquets, photographs, candles, makeshift menorahs, Santería shrines, plates of food, bottles of alcohol, and even empty cremation urns.

This stretch of riverbank — remarkably, in Manhattan — also provides blackberries, poke berries, boxthorn berries, goldenrod, yarrow, honeycomb, clay deposits, and charred firewood, which I use for stains and dyes. It offers bones of skunks, possums, and raccoons; shells of freshwater and sea turtles; and feathers of migratory and local birds, which I incorporate as inlay and decoration. Rope, netting, and fishing line are tangled among the rocks.

As a self-taught woodworker, my intention is not to improve upon what the Hudson washes ashore, but to learn from it. Over time, this particular stretch of river has come to offer me everything I need to live and work like a castaway craftsman — a folk artist situated at the edge of one of the busiest and most sophisticated cities in the United States.