Another Goldsworthy Spiral

Goldsworthy Spiral, originally uploaded by escher1.

My arms were far to achy for any climbing so we headed down to Heysham instead. The tide was just going out, the wind barely noticeable and it was quite warm. Not quite the total washout that was predicted. We had a look around the corner ontowards Morecambe with the graveyard and the ruined chapel on the cliff but made a uturn and headed to our usual spot.

My first thought was to make a long pebble line of faded colours so I began searching for the contrasting colours I would use as a guide, but the idea didn't grab me so I gave up on that one. I had finally brought down all the split pebbles collected from Lytham so I thought it was time for another attempt for a spiral. I sat up on one of the sandstone slabs and bashed the final unsplit pebbles until I had quite a large collection of them. I selected a piece of sand on which to start building and transported a few of the pebbles down onto the beach (why I didn't unload them all down their in the first place I don't know)! After placing three of the split pebbles a few sppits and spots of rain came down. I stuffed my waterproofs under a slab in anticipation of making a rain shadow. The rain suddenly increased in heaviness so I dashed over to the slab, there was no time to put on my waterproofs and laid down. I had to keep my mouth and eyes shut to keep the water out and I was desperate to know whether the rain shadow was appearing and for there to be a break in the rain so I could go and get my camera. Julia brought it over and said that she didn't think the rain shadow was working. It was raining very heavily now and I was soaked through to the skin and quite cold. I got up to examine the slab and indeed she was right, it looked just as wet underneath me as it did either side! Hmmm it seems that a light shower would be much better and the slab needs to be flat, Julia's idea of the lying on the sand wouldv'e been much better, the rain had created an interesting texture on the sand's surface.

After the soaking I went back to the sculpture. I didn't think it would be quite to make as it was. The wet sand now stuck to everything requiring much blowing and sweeping and the lining up of the crack around the spiral took hours and hours. Each time I would move one part another part would move out of alignment. Selection of pebbles was important, ones with a vertical split down the middle worked best and balancing them over each others edges worked well too. The finishing touches took ages too, standing over and squinting at the crack to ensure it flowed and there weren't too many kinks in it, it might have appeared like I have OCD as I fiddled with the smallest little detail but it is all important for the final image. Just wish I had spent the time scratching the pebbles white!