The Surf Does Not Negotiate

The surf is not patient. It is one of the most volatile environments for my process, and I went straight for it, despite an earlier promise that I would just be. It was too seductive. Waves quickly rushed in and out. Rhythmically, repeating, then breaking their own repetition. My smartphone engine wanted continuity, a cohesive progression, a scene that could be assembled into one long sentence. The water refuses. Too much motion, too quickly. It gives you beauty, then takes it back before you can hold it. If my technique thrives on movement, the surf is movement that does not negotiate.

That is what made it so satisfying. At the threshold of beach and sea, with hot sun at my back and its heat in the sand, I could feel the limits of my tool and the limits of my own control. Feet in water, then feet in sand, walking the seam where the world keeps changing. Drawing, erasing. I followed the shifting cast of shadows as if they were threads. Sometimes the stitches held. Sometimes they buckled. Sometimes they produced something I could never have planned.