Compositions Made from Truro Beach Offerings

We are visiting outer Cape Cod for a couple of weeks.  This is a gallery of still life, nature morte, beach sculpture -- I am not sure what to call it -- I have been making from whatever I find nearby on a beach or along the Pamet marsh: shells, plant parts, seaweed, crustacean parts, and occasionally something human made.  I construct them on the sand -- as smooth and pristine an area as I can find -- and then photograph them.  The beaches of this part of the Cape around Truro are abundant with interesting detritus.  

It has become a daily practice to construct at leas two or three of these.  It is has been a week so far.  

Groucho? 

Materials are almost all natural; surprisingly, I'm not finding as much plastic trash on the beach as I seem to remember.  Could  there be less now?  It is hard to believe.  The human-made debris I see most includes small thick rubber bands, like the ones used to truss a lobster claw, and nylon rope.

Crabs and lobsters are molting so crab carapace and lobster claws are plentiful on the beach.  I had forgotten that lobsters can lose a limb and grow a new one!!  Amazing creatures.

I'm not sure how this all started.  I have certainly tried my hand at photographing still life scenes.  But this is different because the process of creating the composition is more elaborate and a creative act in itself.

My husband has pointed out that some of these suggest female anatomy.  Not my intention, though I acknowledge it is up to the eye of the beholder.  I will say that symmetry plays a big part in these designs.  I am not sure I can articulate the desire to use it -- it is somehow satisfying and pleasing to see pairs matching up around a central axis.  Our bodies are designed that way, maybe that's why it seems so innate to look for balance.  Adding symmetry around an axis can feel like resolution.

Looks somewhat American Indian inspired to me after the fact 

, 

It is a lot of fun to build these and find inspiration in the beautiful colors, textures, shapes, and design of the mix of living and dead debris at the shoreline.  Well it is not all debris, I have used living plant parts as the vast dunes and heath edges here offer an interesting array of blooms (asters, goldenrod, Little bluestem, bittersweet berries) leaf color and texture. It is a challenge to see if I can incorporate a new material each time, though I have not been keeping track.

A face can emerge in an object like the crab shell above, morphing into a bull's head (nostrils where the crab eyes would be) and a Minotaur-like creature is spawned.  

Not the most successful attempt at something Swordfish-like

Billy Goat Fish

A photograph can reveal something I did not see as I was creating the arrangement.  I now see a woman's face above, the clams forming a kind of late 1930]s upswept hairstyle (or she is wearing a turban), the yellow rubber band her mouth, seaweed forming eyelashes and dangly earrings.

The seaweed is priceless as an element, I think.  Such beautiful colors and textures, and such variety available on the outer Cape.  Pulling them apart from the heaps they can form on the beach is a discovery of  the richness of plant life in the ocean, perhaps more diverse than on land?  Do we know?

And it is fun when a seemingly extraneous object -- a broken crab shell turned upside down -- can become a jagged gaping mouth. (Above)

I think she now looks like Meryl Streep  with an eye patch !? 

Substitute the tip of a crab leg for her mouth (that extra-orange color caught my eye) and give her a stony nose and she it transformed.  I happen to think she looks like a caricature of Meryl Streep.  Am I nuts?  It is the eye of the beholder.

Only use of Jelly fish here

First Horse shoe crab find 

The only one so far with nylon line included 

Today is a new day.  Will there be a number 24?  I imagine so, though I don't think I will be able to keep up the pace this coming week.  I may need to slow down....  It also depends on where I am and what Cape treasure is available!

Surfing with Sharks on Cape Cod

Here's Newcomb Hollow Beach this past Thursday evening.  We were on this lovely Welfleet, Massachusetts, beach for a friend's neighborhood pot luck and bonfire.  Sadly, a young man died as a result of injuries from a Great White shark attack in the middle of the following day on this same beach.

Newcomb Hollow Beach looking north

Arriving around 5:30 pm, we scratched our heads, watching dozens of surfers in the water at shark 'feeding' time.  The invincibility of youth?  The pictures don't show it, but a group of  a dozen or more surfers and a few paddle boarders were clustered together.  Supposedly there is some safety in numbers, or so I've read.  

Generally, sharks tend to hunt in the late afternoon, evening and early morning.  Yet this most recent shark-related fatality -- the first in 80 some years-- happened in the middle of the day.   

I imagine local officials are reeling from the news and the varying reactions from tourists and locals.  The sharks have always been present, but as the seal population has exploded -- they remain on the endangered list -- shark sightings are increasing.  I suspect there is also more tracking going on than ever before.  It's not uncommon to see planes circling overhead at an ocean side beach as pilots try and spot Great whites from above.  And the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy's "Sharktivity" app  has enabled thousands to follow shark sightings.   

Fisherman push to to cull the seal population (some scientists say it will have little or no effect) as they resent the competition, where as tourists resist any negative impact on the seals.   Meanwhile, sharks are benefiting from the resurgence of blubbery seal meat.  

 

Surfing at around 6pm.

I think this young woman came out and stayed out of the water while others carried on in the waning light.   

It was an absolutely beautiful evening.  

A NOAA scientist who spent twenty years on the Pacific in California before moving to the east coast offers this perspective: 

[In California] “There’s kind of a piece to it where people have come to accept, this is the reality of living in my environment, like a tornado or earthquake or hurricane,” he said. “I totally respect people’s fears about it, but I wonder whether, just because it’s novel here and Jaws is the bogeyman of Cape Cod, that this creates a particularly heightened awareness and cultural sensitivity.”


Can Cape Codders come to accept Great Whites and learn to co-exist?  It is a tough question when the loss of life is so fresh.  Time will tell.  

Bloom Day in the West End of Provincetown

The West End of Provincetown is the quieter, less commercial neighborhood compared to its East End counterpart, and it is closest to to the end of the spit of Cape Cod.  Here's a glimpse of what's blooming there this September along Commercial Street :

The weather has been dry and warm this summer on the Cape.  Good for the tourists, but not so good for the uncultivated vegetation.(The gypsy moths, for instance, have been particularly bad in the woods here because a fungus that usually kills some of them wasn't present due to the dry conditions.)
Many homes and guest houses in Provincetwon have irrigation, so lawns are green and gardens are looking good.

I thought this was an especially inventive use of Fuschia, making it look almost like a vine. Maybe there are some containers hidden up there among the plants.

Provincetown Harbor, seen above, reveals extensive mud flats at low tide.  It's fun to beach comb when the tide it out.

Don't forget to check out other Bloom Day posts at May Dreams.

Happy Fall!

Best of 2015: Photo Review

Les at A Tidewater Gardener  posted his best photographs of 2015 and invited others to do the same, so I'm taking him up on the suggestion.

Most of these photos didn't appear on this blog, because they didn't fit into any posting, or I never got around to doing the post.  So this is a good excuse to include anything I want.  Are they my favorite? Well they are today.  

These topiary pyramids at  Ladew Topiary Gardens north of Baltimore were looking a little shaggy, but it's still an impressive view as you look back toward the house from the middle of the garden.  I visited in October.

The bright red seeds of Magnolia virginiana bursting forth from the seed pod in my garden this fall.  I wish the lasted longer.  

You can't beat the broad Outer Beach of the Cape Cod National Seashore's Atlantic coast.  And this morning in September, as I walked along Ballston Beach in Truro, there was nary a soul.  

Next are some abstract images from the same walk along the beach on the Cape.

This Artemesia and grass were growing out of the steep cliffs that border the back of the beach. 

Fall blooming crocus in my garden.  I need to plant more. 

And some pictures from a trip I took with my sister to the Netherlands and Belgium at the end of April into early May.  I liked the mix of architecture in this spot along the canal in Bruges, though the image is a bit washed out.  The glass doors are very elegant.  

Tulips for sale at the flower market in Amsterdam.  8 Euro, or about $8.60 US, for 50 tulips seems pretty good to me.  If only I could have taken them home.  I like how the vendor interspersed pots of boxwood among the squares of tulips -- it creates a kind of checkerboard.

This home in Delft had a lovely display of potted plants out front.  Note the variety of religious icons above the front door -- a menorah, christ figure and I think I see some sort of buddhist figure.  I also like the color scheme of the house.   

We had a nice view of a sweet garden behind the family-run hotel where we stayed in Bruges.  If you notice some graininess it's because I shot through the window screen.  A cherry tree and Fatsia were blooming; I can't remember what else.  

That's it.  Go check out Les's photographs; he's a good photographer.  Join in -- post your 10 best and leave on link on Les's blog.    Happy New Year!