This book is part of a collaboration with poet Martha Serpas, whose hometown of Galliano, Louisiana, is sinking into the Gulf of Mexico because of coastal erosion and rising seawaters. We are both concerned with the disappearance of the languages and natural patterns of nature because of climate change and its many consequences. We are currently working on an artists’ book that will be called “If Only,” related to Aquinas’s theory of the “Double Effect,” where something (like a hurricane) is both bad and good. The winds and rains before human encroachment were useful for combing and cleaning out the marsh grasses and maintaining the ecosystem of the Gulf Coast. They are now much more destructive and damaging.

Serpas’s book Côte Blanche, was soaked in rust, water, and blue pigments and, thus, fell apart. I restored it, rebound it, added drawings, and traced her handwritten, new poem “If Only” into it.