Projects

The World Wide Water Project

Soaking paper. Grande River, Ohio

It began in 2018 while soaking plain brown paper in the Cache la Poudre river for an installation I was working on.  It grew into The World Wide Water Project.  Many have participated.  Will you? 

Tear a piece of plain brown wrapping paper into a 18″ x 24″ sheet.  Fold the 24″ side in two.  Open the sheet and soak the paper in a water source.  Ocean, river, stream, rain, snow, kitchen sink.  Thank, bless, express gratitude to the water while soaking.  Dry.  Write the date and place you soaked the paper in the top right hand corner of the right inside page.  Add any other words you would like.  Return to me via Artworks Center for Contemporary Art.  Studio 121.  310 Railroad Avenue.  Loveland, CO  80537.  

Document the soaking and email your photos to me at carlisle.studio@mail.com.

I will bind the pages, creating books that hold the memory of your soaking.  I do not collect the soaked paper as one would stamps or postcards documenting visits to exotic places.  I collect them as a memory repository of the action – a memory of where and when one thanked the water.  

We now know that water has memory.   That water informs our development of DNA.  Water surrounds us.  It is in our tears and in our breath.  We find water as dew on the grass or as snow on the ground.  Our bodies are 70% water.  We now know that water talks to water.

I welcome your participation in the World Wide Water Project and look forward to receiving your soaked paper.