Hatchling
Hatching green sea turtle

During the summer of 2008 I had an opportunity to visit the country of Costa Rica with a group of students/teachers through Miami University’s Green Teacher Workshop.  While there we spent two nights at a location in the northeast of the country called Tortuguero or “place of the turtles”.  One dark and stormy night, and it really was very dark and very stormy,  we lay on the exposed beach of Tortuguero in a driving rain with bolt after bolt of lightning and chest throbbing thunder playing about us. It was on this beach, revealed in stark strobes of light which alternately revealed the beach in stark detail and an opaque blackness where we watched turtle after turtle come ashore, struggle up the beach, dig a nest,  lay a clutch of eggs and return to the ocean.   These were green sea turtles, 22,500 of which will repeat what I had witnessed each summer on this one beach.  Green sea turtles are one of several different species of turtle that nest on this beach and one of only about  seven sea turtle species in all the oceans.  The worlds other turtle species include the Hawksbill, Olive Ridley, Kemp’s Ridley, Loggerhead, Flatback and Leatherback.  It was this experience that inspired me to sculpt the Hatchling, Independence, Green  and the mass hatching entitled March to the Sea. 

The Hatchling is made from solid cast bronze.  It weighs about ½ of a pound and is 2” x 2” x 3” in size.  It is a sculpture of a baby green sea turtle emerging from the egg.  This is an open edition piece.

Copyright Herrmann Studio 2010