After Gulf Islander Diana Lynn Thompson had a dream of finding strangely shaped pieces of shell on a beach, she gathered thousands of shell pieces, cut and engraved them, and sent them in 140 envelopes to friends, artists and strangers with a request to place them on a favourite beach. "The shells travelled around the globe, but most settled on beaches in British Columbia," she writes in Alluvion (Saltspring Island: Equilibrium Studio, 2004). Alluvion - Acts of Intention and Intervention, an accompanying art exhibit about the "collective exploration of interplay between human creativity and nature" opened at the Campbell River and District Public Art Gallery in 2004 and at the Nanaimo Art Gallery in 2005. Former publisher Caffyn Kelley of Saltspring has supplied the foreword.

Born in Vancouver in 1958, Diana Lynn Thompson moved to Hornby Island in 1974, where she fell deeply in love with its beauty and was influenced by its original artists. She took her degree at the University of Victoria in 1983, and worked for many years as a park naturalist and botanical illustrator. This background in biology influences her work, which integrates scientific methodology with a poetic sense of wonder. Selections from one of her journals can be found in Hundreds & Thousands - Traces of a Journey, published by the Surrey Art Gallery, with an extended essay by Betsy Warland and an introduction by Liane Davison.

[BCBW 2004] "Art"