Art in Nature blog: Women, water, and sand
6 December, 1980
Let’s loop back from the last post in December 1982, to something exciting that I just found hidden in the archive. This event took place two years earlier and represented a departure from the solitary work with sand and sea.
Collaboration and improvisation
I was facilitating collaborative projects for women in different parts of the city, and in December 1980, decided to take the process to the coast. I was a member of Feminists for the Environment, a group formed after the 1979 Women’s Convention, and after year of hard work on theory we all needed a shift of focus. Everyone liked the idea of going into the environment and creating something together, and a date was set for the work.
I designed a simple template, which we could use as a starting point, and improvise from there as we interacted with the sea. My idea was to create two large forms out of the sand: one a mound, and the other a deep hole — like mirror images. The two forms would be enclosed by a wall, forming a triangle. We would carve out channels to encourage the sea to enter.
I drew out a plan on a large chart, to unfurl when the women arrived.
We were to meet at 10 am at O’Neills beach, which meant walking around from the main beach at Te Henga. I was already out on the coast, having stayed overnight at my bach. The weather was drizzly and phone calls started coming in on my landline from the city. Several were reluctant to make the trip, and wanted to put the event off till the next weekend.
One woman had a headache, another was sick and wouldn’t be coming. But others were staunch, and about to leave. My friend Tanya said on the phone, ‘Of course we go ahead. If you’ve planned to work with the environment, then the weather is part of that, and you accept the weather that you get.’
Allie Eagle, who shared my bach, an inspiring feminist artist and erstwhile sand-worker herself, said, ‘City people don’t understand that it doesn’t have to be fine on the west coast to be good.’
The forecast said the weather would clear towards afternoon. Looking out the window, I could see that the mist was touching the high hill Taumaiti, but came no lower. The sky was bright over the sea, where the weather was coming from. The wind was NW. It was OK. ‘We’re going ahead’, I told the callers.
Tanya arrived first, and the two of us started walking round to O’Neills, taking it slowly, knowing others would be late. Jellyfish were cast up on the sand — ones we’d never seen before. They were beautiful, with a final spiral of red lines radiating from the centre, or sprinkled with deep red spots. Tanya collected them in her bucket.
My artist friend Claudia Pond Eyley was already on the site, with her daughter (13). Another woman appeared out of the blue, and after some discussion about the plan, we began. It was 11 am, and the tide was still going out. Mist hung on the cliff tops.
From my notes:
‘Delicious to break into the untouched sand, to draw the first circles, running around on the beach, letting the body describe the forms. Soon we were totally absorbed in the hard slog of digging the hole, building the mound, making the walls; trying to use sand from one place to build up on another. Meanwhile the tide silently turned, without our noticing.’
An hour later a carload of four women from the city arrived and gradually joined in.
Two of us worked with identical coal shovels on the triangular wall around the mound, leaving textured castings as we went. Another two decided to connect the triangles around pond and mound.
The pond grew deeper, awash with the seawater that welled up from below; then Tanya released her jellyfish into it, their tendrils gently swirling about. Another woman added great spade-fulls of sand to the mound, and I lay upon it and gently massaged it smooth.
We broke for lunch and sat on the rocks. The tide was moving fast. We decided to invite the sea into the pond, using channels; but to try and divert it from the mound, using walls and more channels. We had to work quickly.
The sun came out; the pond and moat sparkled and turned blue. The jellyfish seemed to be floating in the sky.
Suddenly a freak wave rushed down the channel and into the pond. Everyone circled it and I took a photo. It took half an hour before the next wave appeared.
The jellyfish in the pool swirled gently together, as if planning their escape to the sea.
The sea washed over the walls of the triangles, softening their outlines. Yet the imprint remained, like a memory in the water. Waves hit the mound, quite hard, and sand jumped off in chunks. The mound turned into an old medieval castle on a hill.
Then arms of water encircled the mound, and receded, leaving symmetrical sloping walls, perfectly smooth. The pond was completely flooded, yet its shape remained.
I felt elated to see our work reclaimed by the sea. It was powerful to have built structures on a larger scale.
My body had merged into a strong sense of connection with the sea, beach, sky, and the cool norwesterly that had blown in to shift the morning mist. Finally I followed the group who had run into the sea, immersing myself in the foaming waves.
Really glad to find you!
Beyond a trinity of inspiration--commitment--body&soul commitment!!