Silhouette, 2020

Sockeye salmon skin; wool; dental floss

The Yup’ik relationship to land, water and its inhabitants manifests in our practice of subsistence—a reliance on our environment to meet our physical, mental, spiritual and economic needs. I dip-netted this sockeye in a stream outside Sitka, Alaska. I then processed the fish myself; skinned each filet before cooking; washed the skin; and tanned it with a homemade solution of soap and vegetable oil. I cut the skin into the various shapes that I wanted, then repurposed my used dental floss to hand sew the pieces before wetting and stretching the material over the canvas stretcher bar.