ABOUT THIS PROJECT

I know I'm not alone when I talk about the complex experience of growing up as a Bonacker. Class conflict, loss, poverty, dying livelihoods, inherited mental health issues, isolation, substance abuse, and the ensuing diaspora as our culture dilutes and we shuffle off to the Carolinas in search of a simpler, more manageable life. Yet some of us remain, in awe of this magical place where our roots run deep, the light refracts from the sea to the bays, and history remains visibly intact in sacred pockets of landscape and architecture. We remain, conflicted and hanging on by a thread.

When we experience conflict and adversity, we often struggle with our mental health. Combine that with being creative, as so many of us are out here, and life can become challenging to navigate. We're sensitive to the world around us so we get worn down easily. We tend to mold ourselves around other people to feel valued until we lose track of our purpose. We inherently think outside the box so we struggle with following social and cultural norms. If we don't create space for ourselves to exist freely we drown in the suffocating chaos of every day life, and can easily end up self medicating or self destructing in other ways. 

For me, when I sense I'm losing myself, my therapy has always been retreating to familiar salty places, alone, when it's most quiet. Early mornings, after sunset, in the off season. There's something about the vastness of salt water, the entire ecosystems that live underneath, existing simultaneously to ours, yet we're oblivious to one another. The full sensory experience of feeling the sand, wind, sun, rain — smelling the brine and aquatic decay, the sound of waves and gulls, the taste of salt in the air, and the sheer beauty of it all, unchanged for so long. All the senses combine to bring a sixth sense, an awareness of the universe being so much larger than we are, the all-encompassing presence of the unknown and unknowable. It puts our troubles into perspective and brings us back into ourselves, not as individual humans, but as a meaningful cog in the universal ecosystem. Perceiving one's self as a single menhaden or starling in a massive murmuration offers a foundation for connecting and creating.

The Salt Heir, to me, is not only a tribute to these places, but its also a place I carved out for myself to exist freely in the world. It's not a business I started with an entrepreneurial mission, this is an art project for me to pour myself into, in whatever way makes sense to me in the moment. When I'm inspired by the formations of the clouds, I'll go out and shoot photos to share. From those photos I'll write. From those writings I'll paint. From the paintings I'll be inspired to watch the weather, which then takes me back outside to shoot photos. I'll pour myself into a project, like designing the sweatshirt, with such intense perfectionism it's almost pathological, then let it go, in an act of release, it will become whatever it's meant to be.

There is, of course, the long term goal of creating an income stream here so I don't need another full time job to live, which would give me so much more time and space to create and care for my wellbeing. Maybe that will happen, maybe it won't, either way it's ok, because this project remains a carved out space for me to exist and survive either way.

I invite you to share in this journey with me. I hope you'll be inspired by something you see. Inspired to create your own space in the world. Inspired to tell your stories. Inspired to build something meaningful to you. I'm open to new ideas, let's build things together. Or let's build them on our own, then bring them together later. Who knows what the future holds, it's an open book, let's fill the pages with something that matters.

With Love,
Hannah