The Usual Suspect

A great blue heron stands among marsh grasses at the edge of Mobile Bay, the horizon and shoreline compressed into the triangular shape of a historic pottery fragment. The fragment’s broken boundaries become the boundaries of the landscape, preserving a quiet, familiar moment from the same shoreline where the stoneware was recovered.

Year: 2026
Medium: Oil on one historic pottery fragment
Pottery: Albany-slipped stoneware, primarily c. 1880-1920
Locality: Eastern Shore, Mobile Bay, Ala.
Framed dimensions: 14.25 × 14.25 in.
Original artwork: One of a kind