I am attempting to knit a
sculpture. It is an experiment and might not work out but I want to submit
something to the Utah Arts and Museum Painting and Sculpture exhibition and
some of my pieces are just too “crafty” (read functional) to be submitted.
I, of course, am still
interested in Great Salt Lake and lately I have been ruminating on its changing
nature. Every time I go out there, the lake seems to be shrinking. It is almost at historic lows right now so the outline of the lake is very different
than in past years. It became very clear when my husband and I took a trip on
Skyline drive last weekend in the mountains above Bountiful, Utah. The view of
the lake is spectacular but the low levels are very apparent.
The lake’s shoreline becomes
more and more salty and white from the evaporating water. On the northern
shores, the white becomes tinged with pink from the halorarchaea. The north arm
of the lake is super saturated with salt and the bacteria flourish so the water
is noticeably pink. So much so that you can see the difference from Google Earth!
The north side became more salty when the Lucin Cutoff railroad causeway was
built across the lake in the 1950s creating two distinct environments in the
lake. Several reasons are given for this difference and you can read about them here if
you are interested…or are a layperson Eco-geek like me.
All this crazy chaos of the
lake has captured my attention. I am trying to knit a cross section of the lake
showing the growing salty shores, the blue south arm, the pink north arm, and
the pink-tinged salt. I am knitting it with steel and silk yarn that can be
sculpted and molded when I am done. You can see me knitting the sculpture while overlooking the lake above. Like I said, this is an
experiment. Stay tuned to see how it turns out.