Rain first thing in the morning then the sun came out for a day of brilliant, watery, low winter’s sunshine casting long, sharp shadows on the beach. I know Eype beach pretty well and I knew that the right materials were there and that the place was spot on. I’d had this idea shortly after doing the pebble spiral which won the BAC Sculpture on the beach prize.
On Boxing Day there had been a huge Tsunami in Indonesia, the product of which is that the death toll continues to rise daily. The timing was appropriate.
The concept was to get a large flat rock that was not too eroded but fresh from the earth and surround it with cracked pebbles that would create the effect that the large rock had been pushed out of the earth with considerable force, cracking the beach stones as it was driven upwards.
I tried this twice. The first one I tried with smaller pebbles. Two problems, the stones were too small and the angle that I had built it was totally wrong for any decent photos to be taken as I would always create a shadow over the sculpture.
Decided to have another go but with the orientation being East – West. Used much larger pebbles which I cracked using two upright pebbles and a hammer stone. Scratched the edges with another stone to make the edge more discernable and rubbed the dust created with my finger to blend it. This worked much better and is much more powerful image.
Whilst creating this piece, my mind was on the people who had suffered during the course of the tsunami and the fact that man will never tame the earth. The earth cannot be tamed and we should not try. We can only revere and look after our greatest inheritance.
Just got it onto film when it started to rain.