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Decker was born in Proserpine, Australia. Half of her childhood was spent growing up on a sailboat sailing through the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Bahamas. The other part of her childhood was spent in her family’s hometown San Diego. As an avid traveler, Decker has acquired a strong respect for culture and nature. After Decker’s family moved off of their sailboat, Decker kept her passion for the ocean and coastal environments steadfast by swimming, surfing, and investigating coastal cultures. She also began playing water polo in high school. After several years of success and obtaining recognition as a valued athlete she was recruited to play for the University of Southern California. Here she received her BA in Fine arts with an emphasis in painting and ceramics.

 

While at school Decker’s passion for art became foremost important in her life and thus she ambitiously sought out to obtain her masters. As a Masters of Public Art studies student at USC she received a travel grant to travel to Fiji to research Fijian coastal culture and investigate Fiji’s relationship with their coastal ecology. Through this experience she was inspired to write her thesis “Coastal Public Art: An Innovative Way to Disseminate Ocean Science”. Decker intends her thesis to initiate dialogue on how public art can activate environmental activism and inspire us to become more conscious of our relationship with our marine and coastal ecology.

 

Decker’s thesis has provided her with momentum to start a new series of work that utilizes the power of bold visuals to make a statement about nature and to provoke change in our relationship with it. This new series for work is set to be exhibited starting in March 2008.