Slicks, A Maquette And An Idea For Captures
8th September, 2015
Slicks is inspired by the oil spill at Refugio beach California earlier this year. By inspired I meant that I wanted to respond to the catastrophe that it was including the fate of so many wildlife. Once again everybody, human error interferes with nature and in this instance it caused havoc.
When there are enough pieces of work a new collection box will be opened. At the moment these two pieces - Slicks 1 and Slicks 2 - are works on paper 48 inches x 30 inches. They pre-empt much larger work that interrogates the full force of the threat of marine pollution to the Atlantic, oil being a major factor. The collection for Slicks will be worked on intermittently with Sullied Atlantic. They are interrelated in many ways but there might be less reference to the ocean itself in Slicks. Sullied Atlantic is in process but at the moment it is being continually added to.
Maquette: An Idea For Captures
I have been thinking for a while about creating an installation called Captures.
The idea came from my travelling to places in the UK that represent well the purity of the Atlantic. Recently I returned from staying in Portree on the Isle of Skye. The harbour area is delightful but I heard that there is a plan to build a marina in what is at the moment a quaint and bustling harbour. At the moment cruise ships come into dock outside of the harbour where a coach takes the passengers to an area where they sit drinking champagne and eating cucumber sandwiches to feel what it is like to be in an island!! My response to that would be to say get some good walks in get involved in island hospitality and really whoever you are, if you want to see the island the cruise ship is not the answer-especially the area you sit in, it is not exactly a vista over the Atlantic-really think again.. But those huge cruise ships such as those that come in to Southampton would destroy the whole nature of the very pretty harbour that exists if the Marina included plans for more cruise ships to come into Portree. While Cruise ships to not inhabit narina's the Marina could open the way for more cruise ships to come to Portree and they would need to dock somewhere!!! the equivalent of Venice comes to mind. Fine if the distance they dock outside of the harbour is maintained. But there could be a problem if the docking area was expanded.
In the meantime the notion of Captures is to capture a moment that reminds us of what could happen in the future if areas of beauty such as the Atlantic around Skye and Inner and Outer Hebrides suffered as a result of human error.
The little maquette for captures is a small wooden box that displays an image of a clean unsullied ocean but it is surrounded by the blackness and detritus that is the result of a lack of human responsibility. I want to use photography to capture what is pure at the moment and am looking for old distressed containers that I could use for this. There will be sections in each box where a photograph will be displayed not necessarily in the same format as the Maquette. Part of the installation could be dedicated to Skye, Pembrokeshire or Cornwall and Connemara, that is yet to be decided. But if anyone knows of a good way to find old or distressed boxes/containers or even better metal boxes of varied sizes that do not cost a fortune please do contact me via Facebook or my contact page on the website - the search is on.
Just for the record! - there maybe a collection in the future called WHAT IF. For instance WHAT IF The Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye was turned into a giant oil slick? Given the plans for the marina one hopes that it will be done in empathy with the present harbour and while business is good for people the quaintness and character of the harbour is maintained.