The sculptures in this chapter explore watery markings: the ways in which water inscribes its presence, and the ways in which people attempt to diagram and understand its movements. In most cases the objects were made on-site with local materials. They all acknowledge the specificity of that incarnation of water, whether it be in the waves of a tropical sea or locked up in the mass of a glacier. Recurring motifs in this series are the book, the map, and the chart -- elements of our attempt to plot the location and trajectory of this important resource and to locate ourselves in the cosmos. Irland juxtaposes the human impulse to chart...with the power of water to inscribe itself on the rocks beneath a glacier or in the marks of the tide.

-- Kathleen Stewart Howe