Now you see it…… now you don’t

Time for Nature July 2012Julie Wood

Deciding…..

I live in Toronto’s eastern Beach area, and, like a lot of things we take for granted, I very rarely actually take the time to look at the array of nature that surrounds my home. So I thought I’d spend my Time for Nature looking closely at a small part of the beach

Many times, the beach looks like this….

But if you look, you can find a part that looks like this

Day 1 – choosing my site

It didn’t take long to chose where I wanted to hang out and create my art work. I spent the rest of the day watching my fellow beach visitors – swallows, plovers, cormorants and Canada geese mainly. I also worked on ideas for what my piece of art would look like.

Day 2 – creating my work of artI’ve always been fascinated by spirals. I originally wanted to use leaves, but when I got to the site, it was too windy. So I had to adapt, and use stones instead. My first work was a spiral, in dark grey stones. It took quite a while to find enough stones of exactly the same shade.

Ephemeral ArtI like to idea of creating art that will only last for a few days (though I was surprised at how short a time my art did survive for). If no-one sees a work of art, is it still art? How many people saw my art? It was also important to me that I only used materials available close by – nothing was brought from elsewhere.

Day 2 – continuedTo counterbalance my spiral, I then worked on a straight line – graded red pebbles that disappear into a hole, and presumably down to the lake. The position of the rock made this one a bit more difficult – I had to perch on one corner, and balance carefully before I leaned forward to place the next pebble.

Day 3 – reflectionThe morning was spent as a guest of Lenore’s “Time for Nature” plan, exploring the Rouge Valley. I then went to my site, to check up of my two works of art, and plan another one. But, to my consternation, they had both gone!

Day 3 – reflection continuedI don’t really know what happened – maybe the wind picked up overnight, and the waves washed them away. Or maybe an over-enthusiastic dog went by. But more likely, someone passed by and brushed my carefully selected and placed pebbles into the lake.

I’d said lots of brave things about not caring that my art wouldn’t survive… but when it happened I was bereft!

Day 4 – despondentI didn’t have the heart to start again…. so I decided to spend the day at “my” site, hanging out with the swallows, and picking up the garbage that previous visitors had left, or that had become washed up on the shoreline. Maybe not as creative – but it was a “thank you” to a beautiful part of the eastern beaches of Toronto