I have always been obsessed with the ocean. I have spent countless hours wandering the shore, finding shells, both broken and beautiful. Their cultural implications, from history and mythology to modern day design, intrigue me. I will never grow tired of painting and collecting these tiny objects of mystery and unique perfection.
Standing seaside, you curl into a scream, she is kissing your cheeks with sharp teeth, she is scrubbing your soul clean. Here the waves all know your name, and they write sonnets about your salt-and-sun skin in shell-scattered sand. The whirling whining gulls steal olive branches from the crown that circles your skull, and their feathers are sweet and swift as they spill from your seeking fingers. Hourglass palm sifts through secrets rubbed smooth as seaglass by wave-tips and foam-lips. My God, how this place holds you rapt! How it traps you and buries you and cuts you apart with seaweed sharp, with beautiful broken shells and blistering, briny sunlight. Laid apart and emptied out, twisted driftwood arms and legs and shipwreck eyes, boiling night sky soul so full of stars. You are the daughter of the deep, you drown in the hot dry desire of dunes, drunk on salt and dreaming of a distant cerulean death.
"....Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown." -The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot
My life is like a stroll upon the beach, As near the ocean's edge as I can go.- Henry David Thoreau