Flotsam & Jetsam
I have undertaken periods of research over the years, taking photos and sketching details that catch my eye. Standing back to review this work I find that I had focussed my efforts on two physically different environments that are linked by a third.
3 environments, identical textures
I live and work in a rural farm and parkland setting but have the seashore only fifteen minutes drive away, with the two linked by a meandering river in a beautiful valley. These three environments share the common thread of water and wind with decaying tree trunks, river banks and beach cliffs all exhibiting identical textures that at times vary only in scale.
Definition of flotsam and Jetsam
Flotsam is defined as items that have ended up in the sea through accident or shipwreck. Jetsam are items that have been deliberately jettisoned overboard by a ship's crew to lighten the load when the ship is in distress. The waste deposited in the countryside has it's own accidental and deliberate deposits, not all of which are made by humans as some of them are made seasonally by trees and plants. I seem to be drawn to these leavings and the shapes, colours and textures they exhibit.
Seasonal erosion
The Spring and Autumn equinoxes brings storms that leave ever higher tide lines of detritus on the sea foreshore and the countryside is littered with fallen branches and banks of sand and mud flushed out by heavy rains. Before long these are all eaten away by wind, water or wildlife creating soft, scoured surfaces and rounded irregular shapes that I find creeping into my designs. I am always drawn to using techniques and tools that remove from rather than add to designs, depending on simple forms to display the features. Etching and abrading echo the gradual natural disintegration of materials, patination reinforcing the way colours can be leached out or subverted by the passage of time and tide.
Perhaps my practice exhibits my own creation of both Flotsam and Jetsam.
I consciously abandon designs when they no longer meet my needs or fail to achieve the idea I am holding to at the time but then again other designs seem to slowly, unconsciously fade out of focus or are eclipsed by newer, currently more exciting ideas. Every now and then I rediscover a piece of work, perhaps when trawling through my photograph catalogue of older designs, only to find that it sparks a new interest or direction.
