CollectingSeaglass

May 16, 2023

Not too long ago, I spent an afternoon beachcombing with some friends on “Salt Spring Island”. Ever since this trip, I have carried an image in my head of a translucent dress made especially for collecting sea glass. The garment would be covered in small bucket pockets to hold and showcase each shard of beach glass. This garment would facilitate a video performance work that documents the collection process. Another idea I have, in the same vein, is to create a sort of quilted blanket using translucent material and sea glass, suspend it with fishing wire in the center of a large room and project a collaged audiovisual work onto it. The end product would be a time-based installation work.

I am interested in working with sea glass for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I have a close contact who loves to make images using this material, so I would feel good knowing all of this collected sea glass would eventually go somewhere to be put to further use. Secondly, I think the material itself holds a mystical quality and points to themes of memory or marine debris. For this reason, I think there’s a lot to think through and learn from in the pursuit of this project. In order to materialize these ideas, I will document my process of collecting sea glass and start work on some smaller-scale maquettes in order to acquaint myself with how these materials function together.

May 18, 2023

I was curious to see how it looks to scan sea glass.

May 23, 2023

Over the long weekend, I explored a beach near Volunteer Park and found a handful of sea glass. At first, I couldn't find any in the wasteland of oyster shells and dead clams. But I persisted and eventually started to find small pieces. It's interesting how your eyes adjust and it becomes easier to spot what you're looking for. I also found a few other things like wrappers, some paint chips, a rusty spring, and a mechanical eraser (mine now). On this outing, I realized how silly it would be to leave any pieces of trash that I come across so my process is expanding into a bit of a beach cleanup.

In researching mudlarking hotspots, I discovered a beach on the island that is known for sea glass because of a ship that sank nearby. It's in Sidney so I might try to head there in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, I plan to frequent local beaches and collect more beach glass.

I feel I should also mention that one of my main inspirations for this project is a film titled Geographies of Solitude by Jaquelyn Mills. It is a documentary about the wild horses of Sable Island, a crescent-shaped island off the coast of Nova Scotia. The project follows naturalist Zoe Lucas, who has lived, researched, and tended to the island her entire adult life. I am deeply inspired by the visuals of this film and the themes it touches on. I'll link the website to the film below, but if you are interested in watching it, you can stream it for free on the CBC Gem website.

May 24, 2023

Here is a video of a little maquette I made as a part of my material exploration.

June 6, 2023

I've been out searching for sea glass a few times since I last updated this page and I've been meaning to write my thoughts on those outings as well as my work so far. First, collecting all of the trash on top of sea glass has proven to be a little ambitious but I do try to take what small pieces of plastic I can fit into my knapsack. Wrappers and plastic bags especially. Second, I've noticed the beaches in West Vancouver are more fruitful with sea glass than the Kitsilano area. For some reason, it's mostly just shards of broken glass around Kits and not the frosted pebbles I'm after. I have definitely become a little less picky though because I think the light reflections of glass could be interesting to play around with.

A couple of weeks ago I started sewing the tulle dress for my initial idea but quickly realized I'll need to hand-sew the pockets. Since looking for glass is already so time-consuming, I've thought of a different way to blend these materials that will allow me to use a sewing machine. I'll share some rough sketches below! That being said, I still think the dress is worth completing outside of class.

Last week on Thursday, I was out at Volunteer Park and met a stranger from the area. He was interested in what I was doing and I think also wanted to complain a little about some park renovations that are currently happening in the area. It was interesting to hear his perspective and knowledge of the neighborhood. Both of us agreed that it seemed a waste to tear up the park and renovate it and that it was fine the way it was. He definitely had a stereotypical grumpy old man vibe but later in the day he passed by me again with a piece of sea glass he found. So nice!

Friday I headed out to West Vancouver and collected with my friend Marina. We lost track of time and collected upwards of 4 hours. We found some really beautiful deep blue pieces and old blue and white porcelain shards. I fell asleep seeing little rocks and glass that night.

I went back to Volunteer Park yesterday too but didn't last as long because of the wind and honestly wasn't finding much!