Melody Drnach, Janie Harris, Anne Kuhn-Hines, & Mary Meagher

Wrack Line: 2050

2022

Installation generously supported by Mary Hall Keen and Martin Keen

Wood lath and wire storm fence, tumbled stones, shells and LED string lights

4’ x 5’ x 400’

Located at: SHOREBY HILL, 75-121 CONANICUS AVE.

Parking located at east ferry on conanicus Ave.

GPS: 41.49904, -71.36654

Visit the Sea Level Rise website to learn more

Related Programming:

The Confluence of Art + Science on Narragansett Bay, Tuesday, August 2, 6 - 7:30 pm at the JAC

See all Biennial events

About Wrack Line: 2050

In early November 2021, after a nor’easter blew into Jamestown, sending the water of Narragansett Bay across Conanicus Ave and onto the Shoreby Hill green, Mary Meagher sent an email to her friends Anne Kuhn-Hines and Melody Drnach.  She asked for their help with an idea she had for Jamestown Arts Center’s Outdoor Art Experience 2022: Passages. It was to install something akin to the snow fencing we see at beaches, on the Shoreby lower green, marking the predicted consequence of sea level rise in 2050,  as per the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council ( RI CRMC ) maps.  Because the ocean is warming,  it is projected that the level of Narraganset Bay will rise nearly 12 inches in the next thirty years. A storm like that October nor’easter would  leave its mark  more than midway up the lower Shoreby green. This installation, in so prominent a spot as Shoreby Hill,  would send a timely warning to residents and visitors of this impending prospect for our town.   

Anne and Melody enthusiastically replied "Yes."  They were soon joined by Janie Harris. Wrack Line 2050 was born.

The proposal was accepted by the JAC and by the Lower Shoreby Association, with only a few caveats, prominent among them that it not look ‘like junk.’  Ideas flowed. Prototypes were built. Opinions offered, frustrations mounted, concerns raised, the artistic process wove its tumultuous stream. The beach fence from Mackerel Cove, battered by weather during its many years protecting the dunes, was donated to the project by the town of Jamestown. Shells and rocks were collected by Melody, Anne, Janie and other friends. Tumbled stones from their garden were donated by Paul Hamilton and Patti Young.  A very talented seventh grader at the Jamestown School, Tupelo Clancy, designed a logo. Norma Burnell, a graphic and web site designer, who is also a painter, Zentangle master and superb draughtsman, created the website.

Wrack Line 2050 is a site specific installation that hews to the contours of its location. The steady, rhythmic march of the fence is intended to convey the sense of protecting the upland, its  silvery patina testimony to its years of stoic service.  The stream of stones and shells are located where  RI CRMC projects  a mère nuisance storm , like the October nor’easter,  will deposit its wrack line, the debris left when high tide departs, in 2050.
Above all, Wrack Line 2050 is a call to action. We invite you to walk alongside it and reflect on the dilemma of sea level rise in a coastal town. We hope you will visit our web page to learn more about sea level rise, what is being done to accommodate and adapt to it and what we can do to help in that effort.

We thank Richard Wolfe and Cory Dextraze of Wolfe Construction, Luke Lis, Donna Hutchinson and Kitty Cook for their help in the installation of Wrack Line 2050.

About The Wrackettes

Anne Kuhn-Hines is a senior Research Physical Scientist at the US Environmental Protection Agency based in Narragansett. Her research focuses on the cumulative effects of multiple anthropogenic stressors on coastal watershed ecosystems and developing web-based mapping tools allowing coastal communities to geographically visualize where their strengths and weaknesses are relative to strengthening resiliency within their jurisdictional areas. She has a PhD from URI in Environmental Science. Anne is also the Chair of Jamestown’s Conservation Commission and has led the effort to prioritize the protection of Jamestown’s natural resources by implementing salt marsh and dune restoration-adaptation projects across the island. 

Melody Drnach served as Vice President for Action for the National Organization for Women from 2005 to 2009. She is a political activist, tireless in her support for environmental and social justice.  She has led and assisted with innumerable political campaigns, including the successful campaign for Marriage Equality here in Rhode Island.  She enjoys photography and exploring painting and drawing. 

Janie Harris was a corporate vice president at Science Applications International Corporation where she managed pollution prevention and sustainable design programs. In addition to her continued environmental activism, Janie is a committed supporter and patron of the arts with a love for music that knows no bounds. She is also an avid photographer.   

Mary Meagher has wanted to be an architect since she was six years old and saw photos of Harry Gesner’s Wave House in Life Magazine. In college, design gave way to the studio arts, with a focus on printmaking. Post college was an amalgam of odd jobs in the arts and teaching until she enrolled in the Masters in Architecture program at MIT. While there, Mary continued to take classes in painting, drawing and animation, and became a Tutor (instructor) in Harvard’s Visual and Environmental Studies Department in the mid 80’s. She returned to Jamestown to open her own architectural design practice in 1987. She’s been at it ever since. She has dedicated her efforts on this project to Lou Bakanowsky, architect, sculptor, teacher extraordinaire, mentor and inspiration in the art of seeing and seeing the art.

Special thanks to the First Subdivision of Shoreby Hill