TIME AND TIDE WAIT FOR NO (WO)MAN
January can be a gloomy month for some, but this year, for me, it was a time of re-energising, re-treating and re-engaging with my art practice, away, entirely alone, on a two week artist residency in Cornwall.
After my Moonlit exhibition at MAKE South West last year I continue to be influenced by the moon and pulled to keep exploring this area in my work. While I was residing by the sea I thought it would be fitting to look at the moon’s influence on the tides and consider ways of representing this. Throughout my time in Cornwall I consulted local tide times and sea level charts. Each day I collected seawater and mixed it with ink in proportion to the peak of high and low tides [approx. 4 times a day - 62 samples in all]. My hope was that this eventually might be used to create visual data to illustrate any tidal swell around the full WOLF moon (that occurred about half way through my stay), if indeed there was any at all.
TIDE DYED:
Once I’d collected the ink + saltwater solutions I proceeded to dye lengths of yarn and strips of fabric. I then began to tentatively work with the dyed yarns - knitting felt like the right activity to start with; rhythmical, comforting and repetitive. Like the constant push and pull of the waves and tides nothing stays the same forever. I found myself meditating on the idea of allowing things to DONE, UNDONE and REDONE by unravelling and re-winding yarn previously knitted- altered and re-formed and letting go of control or preservation.
HOLDING BACK THE TIDE:
I continued on this theme; using the saltwater + ink solution to make ice cubes which I then placed inside many small envelopes and waited for the cubes to melt, leaving behind inky stains and evidence of the ocean’s presence having once being contained here. This was an intentionally futile attempt to hold back the tide and contemplate the perpetual forward motion of time.
STITCHED DATA:
My feeling about the tide dyed ink + seawater work I'd been doing is that actually that the tonal gradients - depending on where the moon was in it cycle - was very subtle. I could see that the low tide inks were darkest around the full moon and the high tides were lightest, and less opposed toward the middle of the moon cycle, but I am probably the only one who would see this as I know what I did to create the work. I don't know if this was down to inaccurate measuring on my part or perhaps I should have altered the ratio of ink to seawater, but I don't mind that this didn't work out quite how I'd imagined, I'm still really interested in the intention behind the work.
The images below show a hand stitched graph indicating the high and low tides for the duration of the WOLF moon (2nd - 31st Jan 2022). I used thread dyed by the tide to create it. I stitched a gold circle to indicate when the moon was at its fullest and a small gold lines at the beginning and end of it's cycle. It's really clear to see how the tidal intensity is changed around the new and full moon and I love the fluid pattern it makes.
Back in the studio now, and inevitably once one is back in the real world, life and takes over a bit (which of course is the beauty and reason for taking residencies), and other work has taken priority for a while. But I fully intend to pursue some of the ideas engaged with during my time away over the coming months and likely beyond, and I look forward to the next artist residency which, all being well, I will take in January 2023.