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 

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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!