The sculpture that Sarah King made for Charles Ewing’s grave is a heavy, solid piece. Formed in the shape of a fish, the work is about three feet tall and weighs nearly half a ton.

It’s constructed of stone and cement, with rebar inside to provide structure, and is dotted with pebbles that King scoured from the Chilkoot River and the beach on the Lynn Canal.

The piece is a gift to the Ewings. But it is also a sign of King’s appreciation and respect for the people of Haines.

That’s because they helped King through a dark time in her life.

King, a bright-eyed, thick-accented Australian artist of 70, splits her time between Haines and Tasmania. She studied sculpture in Tasmania and interned at Seattle’s Pilchuk Glass School, a renowned glass-working academy.

In Tasmania, King had read about the scenery and geography of the Vancouver Channels and Alaska. While interning in Seattle, King said, she decided to visit the state.

“I thought, well, I’m on this side of the earth,” she said. “I’ve just got to go see Alaska.”

Four years ago, this visit took her to Haines, where, she said, she was struck by the natural beauty and tight-knit town.

“This community showed me love,” she said.

It didn’t take long for her to start returning the sentiment. While staying with her friend Betty Ewing last year, King accompanied her to lay flowers on the grave of her husband. There, she noticed an unmarked grave next to Ewing’s husband.

“I said, ‘And who’s this here? There’s no name or nothing on this grave,’” King remembers. “And (Betty) said, ‘That was my son, Charles.’”

Charles Ewing committed suicide 20 years ago. When King heard Charles’s story, it struck a chord with her: She, too, suffered from depression.

After an emergency open-heart surgery three years ago, for which she had to be airlifted to Anchorage, King endured an exhausting and miserable recovery process.

“I was getting sicker and sicker and I wasn’t getting well,” she said. “You go through lots of moods in your life in the healing process, and sometimes you think that you’re never going to heal.”

The depression lasted four months.

“I used to think I would just put rocks in my pocket and walk out into the sea and drown,” King said, tearing up. “That’s how depressed I was. Because I couldn’t see my life develop.”

What got her through the depression, she said, was her art. “I just kept working,” she said. “And it helped me.”

Ewing said she had not yet been able to get a headstone for her son’s grave. When King told her about the sculpture she was working on, Ewing was surprised and grateful.

“I really appreciate what she’s done,” Ewing said. “I said, ‘Sarah, I can’t pay you.’ And she said, ‘Well, that’s the way I work.’”

That sculpture, which was two years in the making, has been sitting on Ewing’s grave for two months.

Now, King is working on another sculpture she plans to donate. This piece is made up of the same components as the one that marks Ewing’s grave—cement, rebar, and stones gathered from the Lynn Canal beach and the banks of the Chilkoot River. This time, it’s a thank-you to the community of Haines, which, she said, “saved her life.”

The work, which King expects to weigh about a ton, will take the form of a book, with the names of all the people she’d like to thank carved inside. She said the community provided emotional and material support before and after her surgery. She described strangers hugging her on the street and friends helping with transportation and medical costs. King hopes the sculpture will be placed on the grounds of SEARHC, which provided care during her recovery.

After spending the fall and winter in Tasmania, King plans to return next summer to complete the work. She said the piece is a third of the way done.

Mary Crann, the SEARHC Clinic Administrator, said she would welcome King’s sculpture on SEARHC property, but added that SEARHC’s management would have the final say.

“What she’s doing is very unique and very beautiful,” Crann said. “I would love to see it here.”

The artwork, King said, was the least she could do. In the future, she hopes to partner with the health center to run workshops on art therapy and emotional wellness for the people of Haines.

“Without them, I would have died,” she said.