During our first Common Waters gathering along the Nooksack, Angela Latoi waded quietly into the river's shallows in a moment of embodied stillness that spoke volumes without words. Christopher Remmers captures this fleeting gesture of tranquil unity—a woman and the water held together in golden warmth—as a painting about peace and return. With no elaborate symbolism, only presence, light becomes the language: shimmering on the water, glowing across her shoulders, linking her form to the river not just visually but spiritually. In a project filled with tension and dialogue, this quiet moment reminds us why we gather: to listen to silence, to remember belonging, and to see each person not as a representative but as a human being in communion with place.

The first portrait in Christopher Remmers' series for Water Wars (how to avoid) captures Lummi fisherman Free Borsey superimposed over the Mt. Baker wilderness, with the Nooksack River glowing beneath him like a living spirit. By allowing Free's form to dissolve at the shoulders into the landscape, Remmers paints not separation but unity—a man inseparable from the waters that define his ancestral, emotional, and sacred relationship to the land. Salmon emerge from the river like spirit beings, bridging worlds and cycles, while golden light reflects across the water as if approaching the viewer directly. The painting is a portal into reverence, translating the simple, profound truth Free speaks: water is life.