This series of paintings is inspired by a book I found for a dollar in a tiny junk shop under the LIRR in Brooklyn, NY. The book, published in 1938 and distributed by the American Red Cross, was an instructional manual on swimming and diving. The previous owner had read through every chapter. On the frail pages they had circled paragraphs, made notes, underlined important sentences —sometimes even double underlining them, like the one about how to decrease impact to the head when diving. There are chapters on entering the water for the first time, on floating, on treading water, etc. I was fascinated with how someone could learn to swim by reading. I imagined a woman lying on the floor of her high rise studio apartment: Outside her window taxis honk, people fight, kids play, sirens scream, balls bounce on concrete. Outside her window is concrete for miles. And she lies on her stomach on the floor of her apartment, book open wide, trying to understand the breaststroke.

What also fascinated me more about this well loved book were the 1-inch photographs capturing the ideal position of the body in water. The crude, awkward black and white photographs were taken in what looks like a swamp and, clearly, meant for instructional use only— the photos are clinical and cold. But I couldn't stop looking at them and wondering. I don't know what I was looking for. The absence of emotion in the images was heart wrenching.

I was living in Brooklyn at the time, I was pregnant, and I was in a toxic abusive relationship with the father of my baby. I made the first water painting in our apartment. I was channeling the woman swimming on her floor, dreaming of a way to flee. 

The contradictions of the ocean are real and many. Terrifying, peaceful, vast, and intimate. When my skin touches water, I feel both connected to everything on earth and as if I've made my greatest escape into solitude.

Alder Suttles is a visual artist living in Vancouver, WA. She has shown her work in venues across the country. She received her bachelor of fine arts from Maryland Institute College of Art and her master’s degree from the School of Visual Arts. She currently teaches art at Legacy High School.