Beach punctuation.

In the last couple of weeks the dust has settled from the Delaware show, I've been able to catch up on all my work and the weather has cooperated so that I have been able to get down to the beach to do some work. Last weekend the beach was illuminated by that magnificent October sunlight. Cool and clean with a blue sheet of sky. I continued to dismantle the stonebench and started a new little piece using cobbles.
Right now the beach itself is lined with a rampart of cobbles. Washed in by several days of heavy surf prior to the weekend. This low wall of stone may actually keep some of the smaller sculptures safe from unruly surf for a while. It has also supplied me with an inexhaustable supply of cobbles. So I began to gather some black stones, white stones and blue stones and place them in little circular piles.
These piles are about 2 feet in diameter and are about 6 inches apart. When they are placed next to each other it is amazing how the contrasts of their color/value is apparent. When you are looking for them it isn't so obvious that they are that white or black. The blue ones are pretty obvious though. Unfortunately, the sun doesn't get over the bluffs to light the sculptures up until the afternoon and I was working in the morning, so the photos don't pick up the colors so well, but regardless, the end result is interesting.
The white stone in the circle above is particularly affected by the lack of direct sunlight. There was a nice feel to this little sketch and if it survives, I can see a couple of different directions to go with it.
The blue stones are quite beautiful when they are dry and they glow with an inner coolness. They are quite plentiful in the piles of cobbles. They are also the most regular in form and are really very pleasing.


The black stones are the most difficult to track down and here they are photographed wet, because without the sun they don't quite have the same charm. One of the next steps may be to add some or the oranges or reds to the picture. We'll see how it goes.
This weekend I went back down and was surprised to see my circles still there. So in the two hours that I had, I took a little more of the bench down and dressed up the circles a bit. They had been rained and winded on a bit. I also gathered up a bunch of little sticks to put around the black stones to see what would happen. I don't think I have enough. The end result wasn't quite what I was looking for. But it does lead to other possibilities. I also worked a bit on the passage. The end had been washed away by the surf so I put it back together. And I am building up the layers on it a bit. If it doesn't get wiped out by today's big winds I have a plan for it. You can see the rampart of cobbles on each side of the passage, by the way.

I have no idea if anybody actually looks at these images on the blog. I have no idea how to find that information out. But every now and then a comment shows up and the last time I checked I had a nice note from Jen from Florida. All I can say is thank you. The people who stop to chat while I am working and the comments like these are a big help. After dealing with vandals destroying the works every so often and the people who keep taking the stone and the absentee landlords it is the timely positive comment that makes it easy to keep playing Sisyphus. Thanks again.

Passages

Went down this weekend in near perfect conditions. Fall colors exploding. Crystal blue sky. Did some work dismantling the bench and made this little piece. About three feet wide and 30 odd feet long down to the waterline. A quick work, stone sketch as it were, but I like it. It has some potential. I like the way the horizon melts in these pictures...

Here it is lengthening out a bit. This was the second day on the job and I took it down into the water. I don't expect this to last long, but it will be interesting to see what happens after a couple of days of surf.

The peninsula in the distance with the stone passage mirroring it.

At the Intersection of Wallstreet and The Beach

Well, what did you expect? When the blind lead the blind everyone falls into the ditch. The fact that the blind elected the blind doesn't help those with sight much. Saying "I told you so" doesn't really balance things out. So what is one to do when all about you are losing their heads? ....Go down to the beach... The light was perfect and the sun was just trying to vault over the trees that top the bluff, but couldn't quite free itself, its beams being tangled in the upper boughs of the taller trees. The light that made it to the beach was that pure golden light. In the shade it was slate blue-grey. In the water it was cerulean and green and a deep blue in places. I found a log and set it up in the shallow surf only to have it fall seconds later when the water undercut it. After a dozen tries I got it to remain for a minute of two, a sentinal on this empty stretch, like the black monolith in 2001 A Space Oddyssey. Then I sat around and waited for intelligent life to evolve....still waiting.