Carter Wight: Combining creativity and technicality to produce stunning wooden 3D maps of coastal sea floors

Inspired by her nautical upbringing between Perth and Nantucket Island, Carter Wight has been on a journey to combine her technical skills and creativity by mapping coastal seafloors and creating stunning 3D wooden works of art.

Gaining a degree in architecture and structural engineering, Wight went on to complete her engineering masters degree before deciding to combine her interest in the outdoors, technical skills and her desire to create.

Born from her desire to do something different, Wight started creating 3D wooden maps as a way to combine her interests, technical skills, and nautical influence from her father, who would go charter fishing off Nantucket Island in Massachusetts.

Wight started 3D mapping sea floors in 2021 after finishing her masters degree in 2018 at the University of Western Australia.

“I just wanted something a little bit more creative and something that combines my interests in the outdoors as well,” Wight said.

“It was a bit of a process of trying to find a creative outlet, but then also using the architecture skills of survey modelling and technical drawing.

“It combined with my interests growing up with a dad who was a charter fishing captain, so our house was filled with nautical maps and charts.”

Needing a bit of a sea change, Wight and her family made the decision to move to Albany from Perth three years ago.

“(Albany) does have that relaxed laid back lifestyle, which I love, and gives me a chance to explore myself around Albany or different places that I want to go,” she said.

“Also, being a smaller town, it’s allowed me to connect with those companies that are doing interesting things locally, and that might relate to my work as well, especially the Marine Energy Research Centre.”

Drawn to the friendliness and local community spirit of Albany, Wight loves that people are willing to take the time out of their day to share their stories of adventures and explorations of the area with her.

“I’ve had some really good conversations with local characters that are interested in talking to you for hours about their boating explorations around all the islands and whales they ran into or different kinds of stories which helps to fuel what I’m doing anyway,” she said.

Growing up between Massachusetts and Perth, Wight has been heavily inspired by memories of her outdoor experiences.

“Everyone’s got that iconic camping or ocean-based trip that just went sideways, but they still talk about it, because it was a story and they’ve got some sort of memory of it,” she said.

“The ocean is a never-ending inspiration for all that technical understanding of all the sea floors.

“Each piece is so different, and it just keeps that excitement there for each piece.

“Understanding how the seafloor works with my different interests — snorkelling, fishing, diving, and boating — and seeing how all of the natural elements, like the wind, and swell and rain, and how to pick the best spots based on the pieces.

“There’s endless possibilities to keep learning more about the ocean.”

Spending so much time on Nantucket Island, still going every year on vacation with family, Wight is incredibly familiar with the area.

Being able to recreate her personal experience of the area in 3D wooden form, it’s clear that the entire process of bringing the maps to life is something Wight thoroughly enjoys.

“It’s very tidal fishing so you have those big drop-offs,” she said.

“Going there and then coming back and making a map of that specific area, it makes so much sense why we go there and why it’s good for whatever we’re exploring that day.

“It’s an interesting perspective to fly over there, see it from the plane, then go down to the boat and see it on GPS, come back to the computer and model that off on the sonar and then see it in a map.

“It’s a full-circle experience of connecting with the place.”

Gaining the knowledge of model making during her engineering degree, Wight has previous experience with lasers and computer numerical control machines that allow her to achieve a high level of detail in her maps.

“Having that ability to draw and model things on the computer in this free space, and then relate that to how it will come out in a finished product,” she said.

“Because there are minimal tolerances with material thicknesses, and making the frame and cutting recesses and all of that in a millimetre of information.

“When I model the contour line on my computer I can send that contour line to the computer numerical control machine, and it will cut exactly along that path.

“So there’s no artistic interpretation in the contour lines, they are what they are, but it’s to just get that accuracy through all the stages.”

Wight’s Albany studio Scout Seas is open from Tuesdays to Saturdays, and has recently launched her new website at www.scoutseas.com.

Her work is also available at Cafe Collective, Booragoon.

Joining this years Southern Art and Craft Trail, Wight hopes her work evokes thought, curiosity, and personal reflection.

“I hope it makes people curious, I love it,” she said.

“Some people see it and they think it’s a bunch of white ants or eaten wood and then they look closely and go ‘oh, that’s Albany.’

“People can get pretty teary when they see a piece that they really love or have a connection to, and I think that’s pretty cool.”