The glass installation Pipe Dreams shown in the 3 images above references water dowsing: the practice of locating underground water sources by using a tree branch, metal rod, pendulum, or a similar tool. This method has been used for centuries by dowsers (also called diviners or water witches) who rely on their intuition and these tools to guide them. Sitting on riverine shapes sculpted of sand collected from the surrounding area, these dowsing tools rendered in glass become useless, decorative, transparent, and extremely fragile. They point to the hopes and pipe dreams of finding water where there is not enough.

The installation pictured here took place in San Francisco, which sits on a semi-arid peninsula that was once a mosaic of chert and serpentine outcroppings, rolling sand dunes, and grasslands. In the 1850s, aside from a few small lakes, seasonal creeks, and springs, San Francisco did not have an abundance of fresh water. As this gold rush city grew, so did the need for drinking water. Complex engineered infrastructure to capture water was built, including cisterns, culverts, and reservoirs. Eventually a concrete aqueduct 167 miles long was built to transport water from Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy to San Francisco, disrupting ecosystems along the way. Here as in many parts of the world, finding enough water has required – and will continue to require – human-made tools and magical thinking.