Margaux Crump

Inspired by the dynamic, yet often-overlooked waters who animate our city, Mother Bayou is a collaborative exhibition with Jake Eshelman that wonders what might be possible when we reimagine Houston’s bayou ecologies as sacred and fertile community spaces.

The public presentation of this work was supported by Piper Faust Public Art and the Ion District, who hosted the eponymous exhibition. Mother Bayou and the accompanying community programming was partially funded by the City of Houston Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs and the Houston Arts Alliance. 

Our deepest gratitude to Mother Bayou herself for being a gracious teacher and collaborator. 

The works—as well as the processes behind them—are rooted in principles of deep ecology.

We used ritual as a technology to invite spirits of place and water to collaborate with us throughout our creative process. The body of work features photographic images, sculptures, and direct material collaborations made with the myriad beings—both real and imagined—who reside in Houston’s bayous.

Bayou Reflections is a series of cyanotypes created within a ritual where we invited spirits of the bayou to come and play with us. We then mixed bayou water with cyanotype chemistry and made space for uncontrolled phenomena to occur through material, gesture, and folding of the works. Once dry, we exposed these cyanotypes in direct sun. We repeated this ritual process multiple times to introduce additional marks and layers into each artwork. We consider these culminating reflections as collaborative self-portraits of the bayou spirits.

Bayou Plant Walk & Basket-Weaving Workshop with Molly Koehn

Following a guided walk along the bayou to learn about foraging regional plants suitable for cordage and basketry, Molly led a hands-on workshop where participants learned how to weave a basket of their own using locally-harvested plants.