Blight: an artist book by Gabby Cooksey

Poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Summer of 2020. Edition of 28.

Colophon: Ralph Emerson wrote this poem, "Blight", in July of 1843. He spoke out on climate change and the ways we could shift course by not blindly following others. In describing his travels to Europe while writing on life and nature, Emerson said, "same faces under new caps and jackets, another turn of the old kaleidoscope."

I took some liberties with Emerson's poem, surrounding his words with photographs captured at Owen Beach in Washington state on a rainy winter day in 2019. This public beach, in the middle of an urban old-growth forest, will close for a year beginning in fall of 2020 to mitigate the effects of climate change and rising sea levels. Emerson's words of anger and disappointment at environmental destruction only resonate more with our current climate of melting glaciers and raging fires. As we continue to twist the kaleidoscope, I remain optimistic we will find a way to rearrange these fragments and improve the view for future generations.