Sunlight & Water Worn Beach Glass

Sunlight & Water Worn Beach Glass, originally uploaded by e s c h e r.

Whilst searching for pebbles the other week we found a huge amount of water worn glass at Half Moon Bay, Heysham. We collected as much of it as we could and then pondered some ideas for how to use it.

Although I usually only use natural materials I felt that water worn glass found on the beach still fell within my self imposed rules for my land art. There is so much glass on that beach that I think making a sculpture from it would communicate how much of it is there and what different colours are present. Also the fact that it is water worn means that making a sculpture is possible as the glass is easy to handle.

Half Moon Bay sits along the edge of Morecambe Bay, a massive natural feature which means that the coastal drift is prevented and the pebbles don't keep travelling along the shore as would happen on open coastlines. My theory then is that there is so much glass there as it has become trapped and has no open coastline on which to spread and is therefore much more concentrated than on other coastlines. When we were on the east coast earlier in the week there was some glass there but not much. That is another reason I have drawn the conclusion I have.

Secondly most of the glass is clear (or milky because of the water wear), with lesser amounts of green, brown and then very little of blue and light green. This is reflected in the different amounts of glass piled on each rock. Finally the glass on the left was stained pink by using the iron rich rock present there, crushing it to a powder and then staining the glass.

My first idea was to pile up the different colours between two rocks to make a stained glass window effect, but it kept falling down and I couldn't predict where the sun would strike it the best and the tide was coming in fast. So eventually I decided to pile them on rocks so they would catch the sun and reveal the colours.

Despite not using natural materials, for me this sculpture has all the elements I want in land art. It reveals to me an aspect of that beach, making me wonder why there is so much glass there. How clear glass is common yet blue is very rare. My ideas were constrained by what the material would allow me to build, the incoming tide had a bearing on how long I had and the movement and position of the sun were important to the final effect.

That is what Land Art is all about for me.