You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
ON THIS MONTH: ART<br />
Focus on: Groyne 76<br />
by Cliff Crawford<br />
So these are the<br />
tops of groyne<br />
posts? Indeed they<br />
are. There are 121<br />
groynes in Bexhill,<br />
and I’ve been photographing<br />
them over<br />
15 years, and particularly<br />
frequently since<br />
2010. I’ve always got<br />
three or four projects<br />
on the go at a time –<br />
using all sorts of different<br />
art-forms from<br />
line drawing to 3D<br />
computer graphics<br />
- but this one’s been<br />
going a long time,<br />
and I’ve focussed a<br />
lot on it in recent<br />
years. I must have<br />
taken over 18,000<br />
photographs. It’s<br />
become something of<br />
an obsession.<br />
Why? I think of<br />
them as portraits. If you look at the change<br />
that happens to them on a year to year basis it’s<br />
fascinating. Just like traditional portraits. Taking<br />
pictures at regular intervals highlights changes you<br />
might not ordinarily notice, because they’ve happened<br />
gradually over a long period of time. Above<br />
you can see one of the posts of Groyne 76, just<br />
west of the De La Warr: you can track the changes<br />
in its condition and appearance over the years.<br />
What are groynes for? For stopping the shingle<br />
from being washed away, which would be a disaster.<br />
There’s a process known as long-shore drift,<br />
which means that the shingle is dragged – usually<br />
from West to East<br />
– laterally along the<br />
shoreline. Pretty<br />
soon we’d be down<br />
to the sticky clay<br />
beneath.<br />
So you spend a<br />
lot of time on the<br />
shoreline… Actually<br />
it’s not really<br />
a line, if you think<br />
of the difference<br />
between high and<br />
low tide, and neap<br />
and spring tides,<br />
and the fact that the<br />
tide comes in much<br />
further through the<br />
shingle under the<br />
surface than it does<br />
above it. A line, conceptually,<br />
has length<br />
and no thickness,<br />
so thinking about a<br />
‘shoreline’ is very<br />
reductive.<br />
Do you wear wellies to work? Actually walking<br />
boots are better, because once water gets into<br />
wellies… I need good light, so I don’t go when it’s<br />
raining, anyway. The light is best in the morning:<br />
I have to stand on the west side of the groyne<br />
to take a picture, so if I went in the afternoon I<br />
would cast a shadow over the subject matter.<br />
What artwork would you hang on your desert<br />
island palm tree? A Rothko, to calm me down<br />
when I started panicking. But I’d rather have pen<br />
and paper: I’d need it to design my shelter. AL<br />
Waveworn, Cliff’s photos and videos of Bexhill<br />
groynes, Martyrs’ Gallery, <strong>March</strong> 3rd-23rd.<br />
45
Change language