I grew up at the Jersey Shore, so I was always around water during my childhood. My summer’s were filled with trips to the beach and days lounging by our pool. I was always comfortable with water, so meeting people at college from landlocked states who didn’t have access to the beach was eye-opening. As I grew up (especially the last 2 years in college), the rose coloured glasses of my childhood faded away and I suddenly had adult responsibilities and insecurities. It made me much more appreciative of my innocent childhood at the shore and how thankful I was to grow up around water. However, water has a duality to it. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey and decimated my community. I went to school in and around the Point Beach School district, and the whole area had to be practically rebuilt and restored after the hurricane. We didn’t live directly on the beach, but we were still closeby on the Barnegat Bay, so our entire first floor flooded. We got out in time, but our house had to be gutted and rebuilt, so we bounced around between friends and family. For a while we lived in a trailer home parked in the driveway of our waterlogged house. Water is as much a destructive force of nature as it is a source of pleasure for ocean-side communities. In this project I want to represent the flip side of that coin, so I created pieces that strip back our idealized view of water and how it interacts with people and their communities.