Menhir • Lighthouse • Vigil Stones

September 17th, 2013, 1pm

On the beaches people build little structures; driftwood shelters that face the sound, mandalas drawn in the sand, stones stacked to represent what? They are not so much reminiscent of art as they are a manifestation of some primal meaning-making: an interaction with elements (once familiar and useful to hunter-gatherer ancestors) that satisfies some obscure wish to create something ephemeral. Are they some twisted reenactment of what we imagine the Natives intended? They certainly serve no modern purpose (beyond their aesthetic properties).

Spontaneous and purposeless. Their makers will forget. Any chance audience will pass on. Again it comes back to the ephemeral. Maybe in participating in a perceivable act of transience, the meaning of our own temporal states is visualized.

Our existence is much the same as glyphs scratched in sand : water gradually smoothing out the rivulets caused by our movement.


Samuel, Paul, Ryan, Cassie and 3 others said thanks.

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Jo Chapman

Illustration ~ Writing ~ Multi-Medium Storytelling (http://www.lastwebsite.io/)

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