What is Tidal Art?

Tidal Art is a term that my wife and I came up with when we first started creating our sculptures.  We were on the Oregon coast and loved to see the natural materials that washed up on the shore.  We started to arrange them into beautiful shapes and patterns, knowing that they would be washed away within the next few hours.  The tide brought the materials, then took them away again, hence the term Tidal Art.

This term has continued to fit my creative philosophy, whether I'm by the ocean or not.  I try to work within the natural ebb and flow of nature, whether that is within a single day, a month, or during the seasons of the year.  River beds have a completely different feel in the summer versus the winter, or during a dry spell versus after a heavy rain.  Similarly, plants will have different properties, depending on the season in which I'm working with them. I work with what nature provides me, whenever that is.

I tend to go back to the same places over and over, partially for convenience, and partially to learn to understand the locations throughout the seasons and throughout the years.  One way I'm learning my medium is through learning how they change over time.

Tidal art is supposed to be non-destructive.  I work with inorganic or dead materials (rocks, fallen debris, or sand) quite often, and when working with living plants, I work with with invasive species (like Himalayan Blackberry or Oxeye Daisy), or plants that rebound quickly or are abundant (like Pacific Blackberry or Salmonberry).  Tidal art is a cooperation with nature, as nature provides the canvas and materials, and I bring attention to what's already there.

(This blog is a record of the pieces that we build when we're out in nature, or in our backyard. We build these for our own pleasure, and for the enjoyment of others who see them in person or in photographs later on. We're inspired by artists like Andy Goldsworthy and Christo & Jeanne-Claude, who focus on the surroundings as much as the artwork itself.

We work as a team, with Paco building more often than Lia, while she does a lot of the photography when they are out together. When we are building collaborative pieces, it is a wonderful experience. We each have our own styles, which gives rise to a synergy that inspires us both.

Our artwork is meant to be ephemeral, with the pieces (and in many cases, the materials themselves) being washed away with the next tide or pulled down by gravity and time. In return, nature provides us with an astonishing array of building blocks, with each work of art being dictated by what we find on that day in that location.

Ultimately, Nature is the true artist, while we're just her apprentices.)

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