Salt marshes are mysterious ecological guardians between land and sea. No matter how many times I visit, or paddle through a salt marsh, I am forever transfixed by the ebb and flow of saltwater through the grassy, mysterious channels, the play of color, shadow, and light through the tall cordgrasses, the still waters brimming with life. Salt marshes are a cherished artist paradise for me.
At sunset we watch the saltwater tides rising with perfect congruence to the rising moon. No matter the time of day, the creek spreads out in the thrown coinage of sunset, bright as a centerpiece in the transcendental green of the great salt marsh.
Pat Conroy
painting the salt marsh
I created three paintings of light over the salt marsh at various times of the day, imagined scenes that spring from visits to salt marshes up and down the east coast and Louisiana. Gentle, ever-present clicks, creaks, and pops of the marsh are difficult to capture, but my intention was to depict the companions of these sounds: tranquility and light, perhaps the sense of wonder. And maybe —just maybe— these paintings will stir your curiosity enough to imagine what lies beneath the grasses and muck of a salt marsh.
Apart from the undeniable beauty of the salt marsh, they provide food, shelter, and nursery grounds for birds, fish, and other wildlife, ranging from dolphins and otters to snails and turtles. A healthy salt marsh cleanses the water by filtering pollutants and excess nutrients, helping other ecosystems that need clean water to thrive and survive, including oyster reefs and seagrass beds.
To love a swamp, it to love what is muted and marginal, what exists in the shadows, what shoulders its way out of the mud and scurries along the damp edges of what is most commonly praised. And sometimes its invisibility is a blessing. Swamps and bogs are places of transition and wild growth, breeding grounds, experimental labs where organisms and ideas have the luxury of being out of the spotlight, where the imagination can mutate and mate, send tendrils into and out of the water.
—Barbara Hurd, Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination
Preserving wetlands
February 2, 2022 is the first year that World Wetlands Day will be observed as a United Nations international day. The theme for the 2022 edition is Wetlands Action for People and Nature, and it highlights the importance of actions that ensure that wetlands are conserved and sustainably used. It’s an appeal to invest financial, human, and political capital to save the world’s wetlands from disappearing and to restore those we have degraded.