THE SWIMMER
2016-2017
The sun was hot. Neddy Merrill sat by the green water, one hand in it, one around a glass of gin.
John Cheever, "The Swimmer"
Summer bathers float, immersed in undulating, green mats of Enteromorpha prolifera.
Lucy Kavaler sits at her desk, contemplating how to capture, in prose, an organism that ranges from the unicellular to the complex multicellular: Multiplying in toxic blooms in the hypoxic ocean, is it a harbinger of end times? Fuel, food, fertilizer, will our hopes and dreams proliferate on beds of agar?
A lone figure emerges from the waves, trailing tendrils of Ascophyllum nodosum across sun-warmed granite, and with the tangled strands, spells the word A-L-G-A-E
The Swimmer I, pen and ink, 18”x20”
The Swimmer II, pen and ink, 18”x20”
The Swimmer III, pen and ink, 18”x20”
The Swimmer IV, pen and ink, 18”x20”
The Swimmer V, pen and ink, 18”x20”
The Swimmer VI, pen and ink, 18”x20”
All images copyright © Mollie Alisa Goldstrom 2021. No reproduction of any content unless with prior consent.