Terminus: White Mountain Glacier by Kaylyn Messer

Honoring a Glacier

The following is a carved wood bowl and serving utensils by Kaylyn Messer, in honor of White Mountain Glacier. They were created as part of the Terminus glacier project.

 

 

 

 

"My concept for this project was to use wood salvaged from the forest ecosystem & watershed fed by the meltwaters of the White Mountain Glacier to use as a catalyst to bring people together around a shared meal and experience a material object created from the glacier itself. This tree grew, lived, and fell on the landscape we appreciate today through this project.

"In life, we can find meaning and deeper understanding through conversation, nourishment of the body and soul, and spending quality time together. For me this happens most often when I have the opportunity to sit down to dinner with folks for deep conversation around a topic we care deeply about. I hope this piece will spark conversation at your next meal and create a space where different perspectives can be held, discussed, and used to both grieve about the disappearing glaciers as well as celebrate the possibilities of our shared futures.

"The bowl and serving utensils were carved by hand using a saw, hatchet, set of mallets, carving axes, carving adzes, a series of gouges, Sloyd hook & straight knives, burnisher, and chip carving knife. You will see the different shapes and sizes of the wood chips removed during each part of the carving process. The piece is not sanded so you can see each cut and carving mark on the finished project.

"Red Alder when freshly cut is a pale yellow/peach color and dries to a beautiful orange and deep reddish brown color. I used a solution of water and baking soda to amplify the color change naturally bringing out tannins in the wood that would normally darken with age. The spoon handles were accented with MilkPaint as was the image of the glacier on the foot of the bowl. The bowl and spoons are sealed in a food-safe curing Tung Oil with Citrus." -Kaylyn Messer

 

 

Meet the artist: Kaylyn Messer

Kaylyn is a greenwood carver living in Snoqualmie, Washington.

In 2020, Kaylyn began her exploration into greenwood carving after her career became remote due to Covid-19. During that summer she began putting efforts into learning how to carve functional objects from freshly salvaged green wood as a meditative practice and way to connect with the natural areas in her local community. The spoons and bowls she carved became gifts for friends and family as a way to share meals together despite the distance and isolation we experienced during lockdowns and time apart. Carving became not only a creative pursuit, but also a way to connect. Her work has been featured in the Carving on the Edge Festival: Artist Profile (2021), Quercus Magazine: Voices Profile (2022) , and in the article Woodcarving: Finding Flow, Community in the Curve of a Spoon by the Associated Press published in Bloomberg Pursuits (2022).

In addition to greenwoodworking, Kaylyn has connected to nature as a photographer. She created a multimedia piece in collaboration with the Sitka Ranger District of the USDA Forest Service through the Artist in Residency program: Voices of the Wilderness (2012). Kaylyn had the honor to serve on the Board of Directors for Blue Earth (2013-2017), a non-profit that supports visual storytelling on critical environmental and social issues. Kaylyn filmed and photographed a naturally occurring phenomenon known as an ice circle which was featured by the Seattle Times and the Weather Channel(2017).

Kaylyn was also privileged to participate as a Citizen Scientist in an expedition researching wood frogs in remote regions of Alaska. (2022).

You can see more from Kaylyn at her artist website, and on instagram.

 

The Mountaineers, 1940. UW photo collection.

More about White Mountain Glacier

The White Mountain Glacier lies in a cirque near the peak of White Mountain, slightly south and east of the heart of the Olympic Peninsula. Its meltwaters feed directly into the very headwaters of the Quinault River. From the headwaters they flow southwest, joining with numerous streams along the way to feed into Lake Quinault, then continuing to the Pacific Ocean at Tahola. In the last decade, a debris flow covered part of the White Mountain Glacier, and some of the debris is still visible today. The White Mountain Glacier is somewhat rarely visited, though it is not far from Camp Siberia and can be seen from Mount Anderson, looking south across Enchanted Valley.

 

More Please

Learn more about Olympic's glaciers and our changing climate here.

Discover more from the Terminus glacier project here.