Figures
Carried across the Sea.
This image is a personal response to the Asian tsunami disaster and an attempt to convey the profound way in which that event touched lives around the world. Early one morning, I loaded a 50-pound iron Buddha head into a backpack, strapped on my camera equipment, and set out on a four-mile hike up the California coast from Torrey Pines Beach. The Buddha originally came from a monastery, by way of a hospital, before finding its way into my hands on American shores. Several weeks of unusually high surf conditions and winter storms had strewn the beach with organic material. I laid the Buddha in the flotsam, and contemplated the way it interacted with the other objects—a feather, grains of sand. The multiplicity of interpretations symbolizes for me all the individual stories of survivors.
Born R. Evan Thomas in 1965, I work under the name Avenescent as an artist and as a creative director for New Earth Publications and the magazine Planet Lightworker. I have spent my life in artistic exploration, and my present passions are the digital arts and photography. I have enjoyed life experiences in many parts of the United States, and although much of my family resides in the Northwest, I prefer the warm, sunny climate of Southern California.
Image Credit: R. Evan Thomas (avenescent [at] cox.net)
Citation: (2005) PLoS Medicine Issue Image | Vol. 2(6) June 2005. PLoS Med 2(6): ev02.i06. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pmed.v02.i06
Published: June 28, 2005
Copyright: © 2005 R. Evan Thomas. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
This image is a personal response to the Asian tsunami disaster and an attempt to convey the profound way in which that event touched lives around the world. Early one morning, I loaded a 50-pound iron Buddha head into a backpack, strapped on my camera equipment, and set out on a four-mile hike up the California coast from Torrey Pines Beach. The Buddha originally came from a monastery, by way of a hospital, before finding its way into my hands on American shores. Several weeks of unusually high surf conditions and winter storms had strewn the beach with organic material. I laid the Buddha in the flotsam, and contemplated the way it interacted with the other objects—a feather, grains of sand. The multiplicity of interpretations symbolizes for me all the individual stories of survivors.
Born R. Evan Thomas in 1965, I work under the name Avenescent as an artist and as a creative director for New Earth Publications and the magazine Planet Lightworker. I have spent my life in artistic exploration, and my present passions are the digital arts and photography. I have enjoyed life experiences in many parts of the United States, and although much of my family resides in the Northwest, I prefer the warm, sunny climate of Southern California.
Image Credit: R. Evan Thomas (avenescent [at] cox.net)