Rialto Beach is a mile-and-a-half-long stretch filled with driftwood along the northwestern coast of Washington. Sometimes described as a graveyard of trees, it possesses a brooding quality. On this quiet, cloudy morning, the misty shore is a chaotically arranged museum of wizened tree trunks and root balls. Each skeleton of wood, embalmed in salt and bleached by the sun, exhibits a rough-hewn grace, expressively rendering its final gesture.

The beach's proximity to the major rivers of the Olympic Peninsula—especially the Quillayute and Hoh—captures the remains of Western red cedar, Douglas fir, and Sitka spruce that have fallen into rivers and been swept to sea by the current or cut timber that broke away from log rafts sent downstream to ports. The trees, stripped of bark and branches, often traveled great distances, aided by storms, tides, and ocean currents. Timber harvesting has dwindled, and fewer mature forests remain; therefore, less driftwood washes up.

The turbulent ocean has tumbled and smoothed piles of driftwood, ranging from small, polished sticks to massive old-growth rooted trunks. On shorelines like Rialto Beach, which are exposed to winter storms, some of the highest levels of beach loss occur along this coast. However, sturdy embankments of large, stacked driftwood trunks, several yards wide and dozens of yards long, line the upper beach and slow this erosion. When storm waves rise and crash against these piles, the beach rumbles.

This stump was brought ashore by tides and a turbulent sea, becoming embedded in this beach's dark cinder sands, with only its roots exposed. Nested among oval volcanic stones, this glowing figurine will continue to be etched and reshaped by sun, wind, weather, and decay.