A Day at the Beach

These are two very different pieces of accidental art.  One was actually created by a huge accident, running a ship ashore, and the other is just something that happens in nature and the result is a bit artistic.  There are a lot of similarities, and not just that they are both on a beach.  I think both images both tell a story with a lot of tension and struggle despite the fact that on the surface they seem calm.

This shipwreck is on a beach in northern Oregon.  My friend took me to see it while I was visiting her.  There is a lot of tension here in the way that two opposite colors dominating a painting create a tension in the work.  Here the tension is more about the contrast between the fluidity and organic nature of the beach and ocean and the rigid, geometric, and manmade nature of the ship wreckage.  There are many different lines throughout and some of them even form small areas of patterns.  The diagonal lines of the wrecked ship, the water rings in the sand in front of and around the ship make little pockets of pattern and have a rhythm to them.  The high water line in the sand, the waves, and the horizon all create horizontal lines that go all the way from one side to the other.  The ship wreckage itself makes a vertical line that in this case very much shows strength.  It has been standing there for over a hundred years up against the ocean and even the earth it self.  It also creates quite a bit of negative space with the gaps between the ribs through which you can see the ocean and sky behind it. 

 This is a piece of seaweed that is also on that same beach in northern Oregon.  It is stuck in the sand and has been blown around by the wind in circles around the point where it is stuck.  This I believe also has some tension but in a different way than the ship.  It’s like the rings in the sand are telling the story of the struggle between the seaweed, the wind, and the sand.  The seaweed and its shadow make a kind of diagonal, almost horizontal line and the little tiny sand dune that it is stuck in makes another line that is also kind of diagonal but almost vertical.  The shadow tells a lot about both the seaweed and the sand that with out it, it would be very difficult to see.  The shadow shows that there are parts of the seaweed that blend in to the sand and you can barely see; it shows you where the surface of the sand is curved because the shadow is distorted in those areas.  The lines formed by the seaweed whipping around.  The color in this is very monochromatic.  There is pretty much no actual color change at all aside from the bits of seaweed that are actually a different color than the sand around it, but for the most part the seaweed and the sand are the same color.