The changing palette of rock pools

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Potato Point, purple, rock pools

Winter hasn't arrived yet. I've just had a peerless weekend, and a new experience of rock pools. At the low tide that goes with full moon, I could walk around pools that usually I can only look down on. From this perspective, up to my knees in occasional waves, I discovered a few new creatures, and a rich purple and green palette.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Jessie Traill etchings

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etchings, Jessie Traill, National Gallery of Australia

Evening Mallacoota West 1924

 

On Wednesday I left the rock pools of Potato Point to visit the exhibition of Jessie Traill etchings at the National Gallery of Australia. I'd never heard of Jessie Traill, and I know nothing about etchings, but I was enticed by the tranquil etching of Mallacoota, a place familiar and close to home, in “Artonview”. I loved the muted colours, the curves, the sense of light, the balance and the long narrow shape.

It's the first time I've visited the NGA for something other than a blockbuster and the gallery seemed deserted. All the better to stand and contemplate, peering up close with that juggling of bifocals that is my typical gallery manoeuvring. The labels offered a new verbal poetry and a whole array of new ignorances: plate tone with wiped highlight; foul biting; intaglio; soft ground etching; aquatint; mezzotint; dry point; warm black ink.

However, knowledge wasn't necessary for pleasure in the etchings. I was interested in Traill's fascination with the beauty of industrial architecture, something I've experienced, almost against my will, with structures like the brick chimneys at Newtown, the railway viaduct at Manilla and the huge round silos at Binnaway. Her series about the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and her etchings of the Clyde in Scotland used the complex technology of etching to represent other complex technologies, where the aesthetics of form was at one with function.

The great arch, 1932

 

However, her etchings of landscape were what held my attention. I loved her weavings of ti-tree trunks and branches: what at first glance looked dark and sombre revealed an intricacy and delicacy under closer scrutiny. But what really amazed me was her capacity with light: light through gaps in the trees, light reflecting back from the water, late afternoon light.

My only complaint was the reflective glass. I didn't really want to see a lineup of the frames on the opposite wall superimposed on Melbourne from Richmond paddock.

Ti-tree frieze, centre panel 1910

 

Good night in the gully where the white gums grow, 1922

 

Evening Emerald

 

The drinking man, 1914

 

Melbourne from Richmond paddock

 

 

I left Canberra about 2. The afternoon was rainy and by the time I passed through Braidwood the landscape was grey, misty and atmospheric, a real-world match to the feel of Jessie Traill's etchings.

 

 

 

For a brief biography and a short video, have a look at http://nga.gov.au/traill/

 

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Rockface 2

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Potato Point beach (north end)

My interest in photographing rockface is an old one. In the past, I've been eager for close up: one memorable afternoon I filled my camera card (the only time this ever happened in one shoot) peering at 5 sq cm portions of the South Jemison cliffs. My new camera has inveigled me into the wider view – after all, with 21 megapixels, if I want a close up I can just crop to billyo.

Rock hopping has given me access to new patterns and arrangements of rock. When the pools gather too many reflections, shadows and ripples for photography, there is no lack of beyond-the-splash subject matter: subtle, figurative, layered, dramatic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The charcoal artist

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Potato Point, sea patterns

The sea practises its artistry in many ways. When it comes thundering in, day after day, especially after rain that floods the rivers, it leaves delicacy in its wake, sometimes simple and sometimes intricate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Nature does it better

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pebbles, random, shells

Why is it that the beauty of randomness is so hard to achieve? In nature non-patterns have many charms – in fact maybe they are a big part of its beauty. I first came across the difficulties of doing random when we were planting my front yard trees. Even when we tried the Edna Walling trick of throwing potatoes into the air and planting where they fell, we were tempted to make human adjustments – “Just a bit to the left, maybe” – and suddenly our desired random became orderly stilted.

I realised again nature's skill at the random, and my ineptitude. My hand wants to arrange: it's not capable of leaving it to chance. It finds it hard to accept that the fortuitous, the haphazard, the accidental is a far better beauty generator, and impossible to replicate.

For evidence, compare the pebbles and shells nature leaves in heaps in declivities and trenches with my attempt to create such a careless arrangement on the beach. The word “arrangement” is probably the key to my failure and so is my “selection” of shells. Any human attempt at agency seems doomed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After these delicious assemblages, here are my shameful attempts, one too ordered and one excessively chaotic.

 

 

It occurs to me that maybe monoculture can never be random. It also occurs to me that my images of the random have all been cropped or selected at the point of snapping, so I have in fact ordered them out of pure randomness.

 

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Sea anemone illustrations

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Ernst Haeckel, Giacomo Merculiano, Peg Maltby, sea anemones

I was enchanted by the sea anemone illustrations of Giacomo Merculiano and Ernst Haeckel, in the same way as I was enchanted as a child by the illustrations in Peg's fairy book – bright colours, sharp detail, many different things to notice and a kind of magical quality: do such things exist? With anemones the wonder increases when you recognise them as animals rather than flowers.

As a child the fascination was with the fairy story, the imaginary, the fiction. In my sixth decade, the fascination is with the diversity, beauty and surprises of the natural world. Revisiting Peg Maltby's illustrations, I was delighted to find one that included sea anemones, images not unlike those of Merculiano and Haeckel, inhabiting the underwater world of her mermaid, bringing together my worlds at 8 and 68.

 

Giacomo Merculiano: 1893 print

 

Ernst Haeckel: 1904

 

Peg Maltby: Fun under the sea

 

 

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Sea anemones

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Potato Point, rock pools, sea anemones

This morning, I began my true career as a rock hopper. I now travel mostly on my feet, stepping confidently on lines of jagged rock edges and across smooth rounded rocks with slate blue patterns, blurred at the edges. I can't say I'm bounding yet, but I'm not reduced to so much bottom-wriggling, unless I'm descending into the sand to cross a rocky chasm.

The sea seems to be resentful of my interest in boundary rock pools, or maybe just keen on reminding me of its power. Whenever I get set to crouch close to the edge, enchanted by a forest of crimson and green sea anemones, a set rolls in, gurgling through narrow spaces and hurling splash up as high as my waist. I don't mind getting wet, but I tend to be a bit protective of the camera. After all, it sees more than I do and I need it to show me things I miss.

However, I did manage to capture a good collection of crimson anemones and a few green ones. The bright sun and the sea splashes lured them into bloom, and suddenly pools were full of their tentacles. I'm waiting for a still, waveless day when I can paddle round the rocks in a pair of old sand shoes and shorts. For now, I'm content with this collection of flower-like predatory animals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For a quick glance at the range of anemones beyond five rock pools on the north end of Potato Point beach, have a look at

http://www.oceanwideimages.com/categories.asp?cID=220

 

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Travelling south

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Bournda NP, Handkerchief Beach, Janet DeBoos, Narek Gallery

In my bizarre search for the free photo print, I drove south to Merimbula. As always, I made a picnic of it and enjoyed introducing a friend to some of my bush and cultural pleasures along the coast road between Bermagui and Tathra.

We began with coffee at Bermagui, sitting on the deck in the morning sun at the fish and chip shop my friend knew as a child. We looked down into clear water squirming with fish, and out to the presence of Gulaga, looming in clear sky without its cloud cloak.

 

 

Grand plans for a grand tour into all the segments of Mimosa Rock NP and Bournda NP shrank under the pressure of time. We only managed a walk through ti tree and kunzea from North Tura to Bournda Island, along the edge of the lazy-waved turquoise ocean. The bush creaked and groaned and squeaked above us, reminding me of the imaginary hahas my children invented to terrify their friends – the creatures who made those eerie tree-noises.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a picnic in Bournda on the other side of Bournda Lagoon, we visited the exhibition of Janet de Boos porcelain at Narek Galleries in Tanja, an oddly pleasing mix of simple and highly decorative styles on the same vessel: rough-textured earth colours and high gloss vividness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The camellia at the door ushered us back to the natural world and the drive home up the coast.

 

There was time for a quick detour into Handkerchief Beach, just south of Narooma. I've only just started visiting it. Thirty years ago a friend was threatened there by a madman with a bit of 4 x 4, shouting “Get off my beach!” My imagination has always peopled it with that man and that threat, and my timidity has avoided it. Recently (yes! It took me thirty years!) I realised how silly that was, and found a place of tranquillity where Nangudga Lake merges with the sea and where we ended our day of sun, friendship, bush, aesthetics and south coast tourism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Beach pebbles

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pebbles, Potato Point

The beach is not always rich in shells and pebbles. In fact it's often quite bare of these treasures. However, the sea has been flinging beauty ashore for weeks now. All these pebbles are considerably less than 10 cm across and their variety in colour, texture and patterning invites curiosity about their provenance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Shell collecting

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Potato Point, shells

When I first began beach rambling at Potato Point fifteen years ago, I collected shells. I picked up only perfect specimens and even so my collection grew until it filled the bathroom windowsill and outside window ledges. My shells leaked sand, and protected the timber they covered from dust. At first I remembered the provenance of each: the exact spot, the emotion of the day, the particular sensuality of sun and salt air and watery horizon. Now the collection has been drained of all association, and I only notice it when the imminence of visitors drives me to dusting. My current shell collection is more manageable. I house it first on my camera, then my iPad and finally my blog. All the space it takes is megabytes.

Collecting offers me exercise, almost replacing my increasingly desultory routines from Warsaw physiotherapy. I squat on the beach, pretty sure that the sea will send a wave to cover the shell under my camera's particular scrutiny. I hold myself steady to photograph, and ready to leap out of the way before my precious lens takes a soaking. When I return home, I peruse my collection on screen, crop, and eradicate the less than perfect shots. At the moment, I'm happy with aesthetics, but I suspect I'll eventually want to begin the torturous naming ceremonies, struggling with taxonomies and less than explicit photos and excruciating, memory-taxing terminology.

But for now, I'm satisfied with beauty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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