Seaweed: An Un-Still Life

I was drawn to create a seaweed piece, I thought, because whenever my dog and I walk the beach at Asilomar or The Sea Ranch, my spirits soar. These walks celebrate the present moment, a welcome change from the frenzy I slip into when I dwell on my complicated day-to-day life. So much to do; my family so scattered; my domicile unsettled. On the beach, I breathe in the salt air and feel healthy. My eyes linger on all the details: the rocks, the birds, the seals, the waves, the ripples in the sand, the driftwood, and of course, the seaweed. I’d taken seaweed photos for months, so I brought one to Rosalie Dace’s Earth, Wind, Fire and Water workshop. I began composing with layers upon layers, representing long tubular stems of kelp, flowing green sea grasses, dry straw curlicues and broken pieces of shiny, wet, brown, green and bleached out kelp and wracks. The composition on the beach appears as a tangled mess, a transient still life, because each wave rearranges the pile. 

This quilt evolved over 15 months. In the process, one day Spirit sent me an insight as to why I really made the seaweed piece. I am the seaweed. My thoughts and my life are a temporary arrangement of bits and pieces, strewn here and there, entangled in chaos, rearranged by every wave of life, and yet  . . . that mound of seaweed is beautiful, the messy way it is, tangled and torn and transient. It doesn’t need to be unwound or fixed!

Here are a few details: