Block Island
Rhode Island
Relief of Block Island, a glacial island set between Rhode Island Sound and the open Atlantic. Hardwood defines the island's compact interior, clay bluffs, and coastal edge. Translucent resin carries the bathymetry outward, revealing the northern ebb shoal and the continental shelf falling away to the south.
Complete topographic composition
Detail of coastal relief
Angled installation view
This piece began with a wedding at Block Island's southern Mohegan Bluffs, where clay cliffs drop sharply toward the Atlantic. For the couple, the island is not a single memory but a place of return, shaped by summer rides between harbors, familiar roads, and ten square miles that continue to feel vast.
The carving uses vertical exaggeration to give the island's modest terrain its emotional scale. The southern bluffs receive special emphasis in the relief, not as a labeled landmark, but as the place where the story gathers weight.
The resin was mixed toward the color of coastal summer water, with enough translucency to suggest depth around the island. The choices were meant to keep land, water, and memory in relation without turning any single landmark into the subject.
Artist's Note