Expedition Team

Matthew Ecklund, C-216

Alumnus: C-216
Occupation:Active Artist, Philosopher, Writer, Experience Seeker
Edina, Minnesota

While I deeply value each and every one of the ten-thousand lakes my home state has to offer, there's something about the grandeur of the sea with its heaving thirty-foot swells and endless expanses of watery vistas to which I find myself perpetually drawn. SEA provided my first profound experiences in and on the ocean, and I've since searched for a means of boarding Mother Cramer once more to roll with the swells of existence again.

Following my cruise in the Caribbean in the spring of 2008, my studies at Macalester College as a studio artist shifted from their previous preoccupations to trying to convey some of the sights brought back from the sea. My ruminations aboard the ship then centered on the lives of cetaceans, creatures whose massive bodies I was never lucky enough to witness in my eight weeks on the water. My obsession with whales led to the completion of my senior art exhibition, entitled Ligatura Cetacea, which sought to mimic the style and exhibition of Seventeenth Century illustrations of the myriad of newly discovered (and misunderstood) creatures of the sea. Hung in the high salon style, forty-seven ornately framed drawings of whales bound in line decorated a wall painted Sperm whale grey from floor to ceiling. The contorted forms of the creatures exemplifies the desire of humankind to understand, exhibit, and categorize, often at the expense of the animals it seeks to explain. Ironically, this thirst for knowledge that longs to understand life is the very driving force that succeeds by destroying by dealing death. While seeking to comprehend, we must continue to exercise restraint in allowing nature to take its course, acknowledging that we are members in that balance, not made exceptions by some cosmic rule.

As I take to the sea again, I embark on a different mission that will doubtless yield very different lessons. My preoccupations and studies under the sails will shift from the massive and organic to the minute and man-made. I look forward to embracing the ways this change influences my art, my thoughts, and my life, both aboard the ship and beyond.