- Aug 7, 2025
Updated: Nov 8, 2025
On trips to the coast, I take a little scrap of fabric and steep it in the ocean - a harmless relic for incorporation into later works. This scrap of cotton bedsheet, sourced for free from an old antique store, was close to potential disaster in the winter current at a beach near St George's Basin, in the South Coast region of New South Wales, Australia.
The water was freezing, so I only swam briefly, snorkelling enough to see several glassy fish cruising close by. While my intrepid brother and sister snorkelled the bay, my Dad surveyed the coast. Back on shore, I stooped to the sealine, fabric in hand, the next wave.
Thinking on it, this ritual has to do with building a relational spirit within the cloth. It's a place-based practice, although the dried result is not entirely obvious as a narrative to others. The experience is lived - a fine day, sun, winter, sand, cold ocean, family - but it's a meditative process, it puts my mind at ease, reflecting personal tales.
Then, standing at the shore, I felt a loosening. My body strap gave way, ditching my camera with an unceremonious plop in the wet sand behind me. Fortunately, with a minimal fresh water rinse and manual dusting, it looked ok. I tested it - it was fine, no harm done. I dried the cloth in the overhang of a Banksia tree.
