Hi! I’m Erica, a recent ALM graduate from the Museum Studies program at Harvard, maritime historian, National Parks Service alumna, travel fiend, and overall nerd. After a nor’easter caused me to move out of my house on the Massachusetts coast, and a season as a deckhand on the largest viking longship afloat, I came back to my parents’ in Texas to regroup and figure out my next steps. 

That next step seems to be, continue traveling and start a blog. 

I love traveling and visiting cultural heritage institutions wherever I find myself. For my graduate Capstone project, I explored the ways digital mediums can be used to preserve and disseminate intangible and tangible cultural heritage, specifically in the fields of maritime history and nautical archaeology. I see this as a blog that in part allows me to share and start conversations about the preservation of maritime history; and in other part, create of travelogue  of my wanderings across the globe—usually to some exhibition, ship, coastal community, or a unit of the National Park Service. 

My passion—obsession—with the sea has been a thing as long as anyone can remember. Some of my earliest memories are wandering around the USS Lexington museum ship on holiday in Corpus Christi, Texas then walking over to a neighboring park where my extended family set up a picnic to keep them busy while I watched ships enter and exit the port. Today, this passion has translated into a career as an independent maritime historian researching 18th century North American and Scandinavian trade and coastal lifeways of northern waters; occasional deckhand stints on tall ships; and working in maritime museums in collections management and curation. 

I hope you enjoy following me on my adventures! If you are interested in my professional side, please have a look at my CV; if you are curious about my wanderlust, my blog is your spot. Please feel free to contact me for questions, ideas, or if you want to collaborate!

Full Speed Ahead, 

Erica

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

The wave artwork used on the blog was created by Justin Levesque, the brain behind One Dynamic System. I have been in love with Justin’s work after I came across his ICELANDx207: Container exhibit in an Eimskip container that traveled around Portland, Maine. Since then he has become a great friend and has solidified a signature style of contemporary maritime art. His latest works, exploring nautical themes and climate change with digital and experimental mediums (and using lovely ultramarine hues) have become a lovely visual metaphor for my interest in relationship between maritime history and digital media. These waves emanate from his archive of work created during a 2017 shipboard artist residency in Svalbard, Norway. 

Find Justin on Instagram here.