Following Part One of this blog series, I am sharing an analysis and reflection of my own place-based, ecocentric work. My artist book Nursery: The River that Flows Both Ways takes readers on a journey through time, beginning with a glimpse of how the glacial forces formed the Hudson Valley and how for millennia, the Lenape people survived and thrived based on a reciprocity with each other and their land.[1] As implied in its title, the book celebrates both the river’s own purpose as a nursery for migratory fish and the nature of its Lenape-given (translated) name, Muhheakanuck, which recognizes its observable estuarine attributes—a stark contrast to the names recognizing imperialism-fueled explorers. The book was created in 2023 when I was still living in Westchester County, NY, and like a slow-moving, meandering and interrupted river, I will at last be completing the hand-cut and assembled first edition this summer which was created digitally and ink-jet printed on watercolor paper.
Nursery: The River that Flows Both Ways by Karen Viola
I challenged myself to convey an poetic essence of this living river’s lifespan thus far in very few words without the distraction of dates or numbers—a loose brushstroke of sequencing which paints an accessible, more-than-human sketch of experience over time, where it seems, from the river’s point of view and “in the blink of a mountain’s eye,” that all the European colonists and Americans wanted was ‘more’ of everything they found. What has been widely and rightly celebrated, to which my text alludes, is the landmark case won in 1965 by the environmental organizations who banded together against General Electric who had proposed to build a power plant into the side of Storm King Mountain. Several organizations including Scenic Hudson, Riverkeeper, and Clearwater have been working tirelessly for the sake of the entire Hudson Valley watershed ever since.
With its modest proportions (5 x 7 inches closed), Nursery privileges a haptic experience which, as art historian and curator Betty Bright says about the artist’s book genre, offers readers “a means to begin, to literally take an issue in hand,” and one which I hope might inspire further reflection and conversation about the deeper ‘unseen’ stories beneath the surface of our waterways—and culture. “Once activated by touch,” as Bright explains, “a book’s intimate dynamic joins intellect with emotion and action, sending an artist’s story through the book to its reader.”[2] The graduated accordion structure allows for multiple viewing perspectives. The layered effect of the closed book depicts a receding, turbid water surface, and when opened and standing up for display, the folds and illustrations combine to depict the back and forth cascade of a river from source to sea, the flows of fish migrations, and the ebbs and flows of tides. Anchored to the bottom of the pages, the blocks of text rise as the narrative flows ‘upstream’ to its end, which is really a beginning, presenting a serious of questions which ponder the potential of indigenous knowledge here and now.
In his book, Rivers of Empire, published in 1985, Donald Worster asserts that all our rivers are “worthy of our respect and understanding.” He continues, “To use a river without violating its intrinsic qualities will require much of us. It will require our learning to think like a river, our trying to become a river-adaptive people.”[3] While much more needs to happen, things are beginning to look brighter for rivers rights across the globe, with legal personhood granted to a number of particular rivers. The Whanganui River in New Zealand set the precedent in 2017 with its Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act which includes in its preamble: The great river flows from the gathering of mountains to the sea. I am the river, the river is me. These beautiful words underline what ethnobotanist and educator Dr. Enrique Salmón, who is Rarámuri, calls ‘kincentric ecology.’ He explains: “Interactions are the commerce of ecosystem functioning. Without human recognition of their role in the complexities of life in a place, the life suffers and loses its sustainability.”[4] With a humble nod to these wise leaders, my piece asks all Hudson Valley residents and visitors, starting with the storied New York harbor with its trash-filled, flood-prone edges: “Can we turn to the rising, widening mouth of Muhheakantuck and understand what it is saying to us? Can we discover the source of its mountain spirit, Lake Tear of the Clouds, by paddle or foot or story or poem or dance or song, and understand how we and the water are kin?”
For author and botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, learning the “grammar of animacy” is a pursuit full of promise, and for me, a comfort under the weight of our times: “We don’t have to figure out everything by ourselves: there are intelligences other than our own, teachers all around us.”[5] Indeed, I often ruminate on the loneliness of our age, the air of despair made more intense by current geopolitics and the threat of our biosphere’s demise thanks to humankind. Perhaps a call to the mountains is in order. Take a breath, those mountains might say, in and out slowly, like the tides. And they might remind us that we cannot let the well of our spirit run dry, that we would be wise to go find a body of water to follow, see where it leads, how it goes, and what joy we might find in this process. It might help, they would say, and they would know.
Notes/for further reading:
1. “History of the Hudson River.” Riverkeeper - Protecting the Hudson River & Safeguarding Drinking Water, https://www.riverkeeper.org/resources/history-of-the-hudson-river. Accessed 29 May 2025.
2. Bright, Betty. Reclamation: Artists’ Books on the Environment. Autumn Press, 2021.
3. Worster, Donald. Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West. 1. issued as an Oxford Univ. Press paperback, 1992.
4. Salmón, Enrique. “Kincentric Ecology: Indigenous Perceptions of the Human-Nature Relationship.” Ecological Applications, vol. 10, no. 5, Oct. 2000, p. 1327. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.2307/2641288.
5. Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. First Edition. Milkweed Editions, 2013.
Karen Viola is a book artist and writer in Ithaca, NY. Her work is grounded in research and a sense of kinship with the land. She has an MA in Liberal Studies focused on creative ecoliteracy, a BFA in illustration, and a professional background in designing innovative books for children.
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