Salt / Middle Ground/ Works 4.5' x 6.5'
Salt, Middle Ground, and Works form a triptych created for a collector’s bespoke contemporary sea side home in Cohasset MA. The brief was to create three paintings for the main entry corridor/ feature dining room wall that highlights the elegant features of the home- What an opportunity!
The homeowners swim in the ocean daily- even in the winter! They clean trash from their private beach and collect the buoys that wash up regularly.
After spending time on their beach, observing, collecting old broken up buoys, and just being in the environment, it became clear to me that I wanted to bring the movement of the water and the solidity and mass of rock into the paintings. The colors would evolve from and be determined by the buoys I collected there.
The title, ‘Salt’ is derived from the Old Salt Works that once operated their beach and shore. Thanks to the help of the Cohasset Historical Society, I discovered this amazing industry that was once the lifeblood of the town. I knew that I had to incorporate this historical detail into the paintings.
‘Middle Ground’ is representative of the mass of rock along the homeowners shore that is wrapped by waves as the tide come in. It is peaceful and solid amid the tumultuousness of the water that encircles and crosses it. This painting is the calm in the churning water. As the subject of the middle painting, it is the rest and ease for the eye that allows the paintings on either side to imbibe the ruckus of the flowing water.
Most of the hundreds of pieces of buoys I cut up and incorporated into the painting are from the homeowners beach, collected by them on their daily beach cleaning vigil. other beach debris materials on the three paintings include:
-yoga matt
-lobster bait bags
-lobster trap
-vinyl siding
-rubber hose
-bungee cord
-rubber tubing
-bubble wrap
-polystyrene packaging
-lobster trap ID tags
-flip flop
-bottle caps
-foam padding
-popcorn ceiling sheets
-fiberglass road sign
-scalloping rubber ‘cookies’
-jeans
-fishing rope
-rubber boat bumper strips
-erosion protection bag
-boat shrink wrap
-many other miscellaneous plastic bits
The paintings are created on exterior ridged foam board that was left over from a commercial build and waiting in the dumpster for me to pluck out