Sockeye

Children's book / artist book about the life cycle of the Sockeye salmon. This was my graduate school thesis, completed and exhibited at George Mason University.

“As it is for most creatures on earth, life as a salmon is difficult, and living long enough to procreate can seem nothing short of a miracle.” - Dale Stokes, The Fish in the Forest

During a rainy October visit to the Ballard Locks in Seattle, I saw a lone silver salmon ascend one of the city’s salmon ladders. Somehow, I had never heard about the salmon— that they travel impossible distances away from their homes only to return years later to the exact same coordinates, that only about one in a thousand survive the journey, that their skin turns red as they swim. I wanted to capture the poetry and magic of this story in a children’s book,

Production Notes:
Size: 60 8x10 pages (40 feet long)
Construction: Digitally-manipulated monoprints printed via inkjet on Canson BFK Rives, bound with kozo
Mentors: Jandos Rothstein, Helen Frederick, Lou Stovall, Juana Medina

Select spreads from Sockeye