The Blue Fold: Explorations at Loggerhead Key Dry Tortugas National Park

Matthew and Julie Chase-Daniel share the art and poetry they produced during a month-long artist residency on Loggerhead Key. Seventy miles west of Key West in the Dry Tortugas National Park, Loggerhead Key is part of the third largest coral barrier reef system in the world. It is known for a decommissioned brick lighthouse built in 1858, a light keeper’s brick cottage, a small bunkhouse, and the ruins of a significant marine biology laboratory operated by the Carnegie Institute from 1904-1939. While open to day visitors interested in the coral reef, nearby shipwrecks, and lighthouse, overnight stays are strictly limited to a small number of park service employees, interns, and volunteers. Power is produced by photovoltaic panels and water by a reverse-osmosis desalination system. The island has no telephone, cell phone or internet service.The month-long arts residency is facilitated by the National Parks Arts Foundation, in cooperation with the National Park Service ‘Volunteers in the Parks’ program. The artists arrived on September 1, but were evacuated less than a week later due to the impending arrival of Hurricane Irma. On September 20, they returned to the island, and remained there, alone and uninterrupted until October 10. Through images, poetry, and prose, The Blue Fold explores perspectives, human and natural, of the island and its inhabitants, climate change, sea level rise, coral reefs, Hurricane Irma, and disaster evacuation & recovery.