A Beach Walk Findings

This week has been an emotional one for me. My husband contracted bacterial pneumonia and the infection got into his blood stream and travelled to the site of his titanium hip replacement. At present he is in hospital unable to walk or put pressure on his right side. They are on top of the pneumonia now but he will need to have surgery to scrape the infection away from the hip joint replacement, He is waiting to go to surgery as I type this. I have just heard he will have a replacement ceramic hip put in and will need to stay in hospital for two weeks to make sure the infection does not reappear. Once he is clear of infection there will be about a 6 month recovery process. I have been traveling back and forward to the hospital each day and feeling exhausted by the time I get home so not much happening in the studio at the moment so I am posting this piece which was completed a couple of weeks back.

This piece was recently completed from Debbie Lyddon’s on line course with fibre Arts Take 2. When i look at it now it has an almost Maori weaving look to it but that has been accidental. The drawn threads and wavy edges were to represent the tidal movements. . The base of the ostrich foot foot (struthiolar populosa) hand freely in little windows made from copper wire covered eyelets. These shellfish are only found in the cooler waters of the Southern hemisphere. On the West coast beaches where the Tasman Sea presnts and ongoing onslaught the shells can be found in various stages of decomposition. The strongest part of the shell is the base. It is symbolic of the need for a strong base iall we do.

There are 10 windows with the “bases” hanging freely. the number ten in Pythagorean theory is the symbol of perfection and colpetion. we have 10 fingers and toes. Ten symbolises the completion of a cycle. These findings are the completion of the life cycle of the Ostrich Foot organism - the last identifiable portion before the waves pound them to indeginite fragments.

I have chosed the colours for this piece very intentionally. The dark to represent the West Coast iron sands and the light to replicate the shattered shell substrates. I have left the edged unfinished as a symbol of diintegration

At the bottom left, behind the pulled threads is a print on foil of a skyshap - barely revealed. This incorporates the idea of sand, sea and sky - the elements earth, water and air