Seadrift: Beach Art

It is now winter and the days are short. Although many of us are divorced from the religious occasion of Christmas, I think many of us enjoy decorating our houses with light. When sunrise is at 8am and sunset before 4pm, then we all need as much light as possible. With that in mind, I decided to find a way to make some driftwood stars. I combed the beach for sturdy lengths of driftwood, and then took them home and put them in piles of similar lengths. I wanted a 5-pointed star and aimed to use contrasting pieces of driftwood in terms of colour and texture. Assembling them meant experimenting with how each piece could lie so that the end points could be glued or, occasionally, joined with a small nail or screw. I soon learnt that it is best to attach the brass-plated hook for hanging the star before assembling but this is a mistake I commonly make with any of my driftwood creations: being so excited to make something that I forget to anticipate the need for attachments. Once the glue ha...

Above is a picture of Shoreham Harbour and my house is hidden by trees near the top left corner. I swam in the harbour waters today because I feel a deep connection with the water. As the temperature of the sea is falling, I now emerge with a cold tingle on the skin which is, in many ways, better than swimming in mid-summer. But this blog is not about sea swimming. It's about driftwood art. My connection to the sea extends to the beach eco-system and the plants that grow there, the seaweed that is left as a high tide mark, and the wood and other objects that the sea deposits.  Seagift: driftwood is a free resource and beautiful in its own right. Often it is the shape of the wood that determines what I will make from it. Bone Shark This is the smallest piece I have made. It is a piece of bone that resembles a shark's head mounted on driftwood and metal. It is only about 4 inches wide and 3 inches high. Small is definitely beautiful.  At the other end of the scale is some of the...