Mystery of Waters Collection by Erika Masterson
The sea has always whispered to me, even before I knew its voice. I was eight when my family left the sun-scorched desert of New Mexico, trading sand for salt air, arroyos for endless waves. My father, a sailor and a captain, led us to the water’s edge. His eyes, weathered by years at sea, carried a quiet longing for the solace only the ocean could offer. I didn’t understand it then, but I felt it—the pull, the mystery.
As a child, I’d sit by a creek near a friend’s cabin, hypnotized by the icy trickle over smooth stones. It was a sound that stitched itself into my bones, a melody I carried through decades of life. Later, as an adult, I found myself drawn back to water again and again—thirty summers spent camping by a remote lake in the mountains, its surface a mirror for the sky, its depths a cradle for my restless spirit. The water became more than a place; it became a symbol, a gift. In my dreams, I floated through it, weightless, passing through liquid veils to new horizons. Those visions weren’t just dreams—they were lanterns lighting the way to adventures I couldn’t yet name.
My father’s spirit sails through this story, too. He was the first to show me the sea’s embrace, its power to renew and cleanse. I see him now in the calm of the tide, hear him in the rhythm of the waves. This series, Mystery of Waters, is for him—a tribute to the man who taught me to listen to the water’s voice.
Beneath the surface, everything changes. The world above grows distant, muffled, and I am alive in a way I can’t explain. As a portrait artist, I’d spent years capturing faces, but the water called me deeper. Underwater, my lens finds something raw, something unguarded. The people I photograph become part of the sea’s story—suspended, free, their fears dissolving into the current. The sea is a storyteller, too. It whispers of purpose, of dreams given form. When we listen, the waters are calm, a steady hand guiding us forward. But when we let fear steer us astray, we risk the shipwreck—splinters of what could have been scattered across the depths.
Mystery of Waters is my journey, and my father’s, woven together. It’s the desert creek of my childhood, the mountain lake of my summers, the ocean he loved so fiercely. It’s the life-giving essence that flows through us all, a gift for the soul that keeps us buoyant. I don’t know what lies beyond this series—where the water will lead me next. For now, I trust the voice that brought me here, the one that speaks through the waves, calling me ever deeper into the mystery.
