At one time, I lived as far from
the sea as ever I have lived in my lifetime: a stint of some twelve years in
Stourbridge, in the West Midlands. Sea-side dwellers, or those who live a
short distance from one of our coastlines, will understand how
claustrophobic this land-locked period must feel. There is so much to miss:
the salty-flavoured air and sea-breezes, the freedom of beach-walks and
nearness to a vast and living body of water, always in lively movement,
reflecting and enhancing the temperament of changing skies.
Our shift from North West
Pembrokeshire was tied to a job – my then husband’s, in a large Independant
school. Our young children and I had to get used to a different pace of
life, drivers with road rage, thousands of strangers and networks of
streets, instead of rural life among well-known neighbours and our family’s
close friends. Everyone longed for the fortnight holidays when we ‘went
home’ to a campsite outside St. David’s. After two days by the sea, children
and adults felt happy again.
Twelve years is a very long time.
After nearly five years I began to notice something unexpected; namely, that
my hunger for a nourishing environment could be partially assuaged by
finding inadvertant art in the landscape, by which I mean – old junk. The
fluky incongruity of ‘dead’ white goods, trailing old flex or with rusting
doors now permanently gaping, dumped in ‘living’ green oases, having lost
their function, took my fancy. Things which once had been so carefully
designed, now changedby time
and the quixotic elements, became interesting as pieces of art to
contemplate and to enjoy.
I had the good fortune to find work on a site that
bordered the canal. A brisk half hour’s walk every morning brought me from
our house, in a pleasant residential area, to the most interesting part of
the old town. Turning off the High Street at the Bonded Warehouse, my way to
Amblecoat led between barges on the still water and semi-derelict buildings
where, a long time since, small iron works had been. About half-way along
this artificially-rural canal route, on the far side of the water, some one
– once - had jettisoned a three piece suite into the trees and shrubbery
lining the bank. During the summer and early autumn there was not much to
see. In winter, though, the furniture was plainly visible: an ironic
sculptural elegy for domestic clichés.This random installation exhibited an
almost transcendent presence when, in icy winter, snowfalls picked out its
humane and still-comfortable forms.
As long as I lived so far inland, I could not bear to see abandoned
artefacts which had been flung into rivers. The ubiquitous bike, baby buggy
or supermarket trolley, caught in a stream, still never fails to offend.
Yet, strangely, when I had returned to Pembrokeshire for good, I found
myself much fascinated once by the sight of a single yellow marigold glove,
on display in a rock pool, nuzzled by small fish.
