I knew I needed it but didn’t know how much…
What is it about the sea that draws so many of us? Is it the open space, the colours, the opportunity to see the horizon? The fresh air, the breeze, the energy. Of course it is probably all of these things and many more.
For me it is the space, smell, colour, movement and energy. I know there are many who believe that it makes a difference if you grew up near the sea but I’m sure that’s not exclusive. I think there are many who discover the power of the sea later in their lives.
I grew up by the sea though, and I know I didn’t realise how much it would affect me when I moved inland as an adult. It was so normal to be near the sea, I think I naïvely thought I’d be able to get the same feelings of freedom inland if I went out for walks and sometimes I do but there is something else about the sea - it’s like the ultimate outdoors. Is it going back to our origins as some believe? We came from the sea perhaps so it is in our genetic coding? Is it because there are no apparent boundaries?
I love its mighty power and its gentle stillness. In one day it goes through so many different states and movements. Some days it is like a millpond and others tempestuous and restless.
All I know is that it is in my soul and I can’t imagine not being able to get to it. This huge powerful body of living energy, heavy and so much stronger than we realise.
I’m so thankful I unexpectedly made it to the coast this summer - it has refreshed and inspired me - filled me up and spurred me on.
Walking the coast path of North Cornwall, I felt I could have stayed there forever in a constant state of peace and true joy. Painting it brings me similar joy - a state of absorption almost ecstatic. The movement of paint and mark making created from my own inner energy and intensity is like the sea welling up from within me and spilling out over the sea wall.
A very dear friend of mine, artist Tim Steward, sent me this piece of writing over the summer - it is so apt. It relates to a painter called Joan Eardley whose work inspires me and I connect with.
“The sea, the sea. Baudelaire thought of it as landscape in perpetual movement. To paint the sea convincingly is a near impossibility. It has to be experienced. Like snow on the land, its essential nature simply may not be painted. With snow it is silence: with the sea it is movement. There is the calm too. ‘It is a mild mild wind’ says Ahab to Starbuck (Moby Dick), looking at the flat ocean ‘and a mild looking meadow’.
But the power of the sea over the imagination derives from its enormous bulk, weight, volume and depth being hugely in motion. There are certain rare kinds of mentality which recognise an innate emotional connection between sea and paint, between the changeableness of mass and the ambiguity of paint, between what it is like to confront the illimitable motion of the sea and to imply volume and movement in broad, running paint through the risked gesture to such an extent that the spray is in the pigment and the racket of the waves and wind have inexplicably entered its sentiment.”
I’ll leave you with a few photos.
