Lifeboats, a device to prolong life when one finds oneself all at sea.
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| Lifeboats © The Ponder Room |
The Queen Mary has 20, a Rottnest Ferry between 2 and 6, but after this weekend Cottesloe Beach will be covered in 1,697.
With one week to go, I was warned to tread carefully when visiting the talented, but exhausted, five Central Tafe graduates. Some said that if I mentioned the word lifeboat around them, I may not get out alive, I may find myself buried alive under the very devices meant to preserve said life. It was worth a chance.
The group, Marwa Fahmy, Kate Parker, Emma Danks, Elizabeth Marpole and Stephen Genovese have worked on the installation every day since September 2010, often well into the night. As the deadline looms large I found Kate and Elizabeth drowning under an unruly ocean of 1,697 completed lifeboats. The little white boats completely covered the paint spattered wooden floor of one room, and two smaller piles of ‘spares’ lay in another, hoping to be called in as emergencies at the last minute.
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| Ocean of lifeboats
© The Ponder Room
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Each boat had been hand folded, dipped in paraffin wax, and stabbed to create a drainage hole, “incase it rains”, Elizabeth explained. I got the impression that the ferocity of the stab holes may have increased as the floor disappeared under the spreading pile of boats. For some reason my eyes drifted to the girls hands expecting to see a litany of wounds five times deeper than any normal paper cut. Surprisingly papercuts weren’t an issue, “but our fingertips did get this weird smooth feeling to them” they giggled.
But why so many boats?
“In 1697 Willem de Valaming arrived in Cottesloe” Kate stated, explaining that the idea came to them all during last years boat people crisis. “Wille was a boat person too”.
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| Kate Parker, Elizabeth Marpole
© The Ponder Room
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Even with 1,697 completed boats lying lifelessly on the floor, they aren’t finished. In the remaining days the group has to pack up the boats for transport, assemble them on the beach (without losing them all in a lemming-like fashion to the Fremantle Doctor) and make three ceramic slip cast versions for the indoor exhibition. The ceramic versions will be for sale.
When asked how they keep themselves motivated Elizabeth’s response was quick, “frequent trips to Coles”, for lifesaving supplies of caffine, energy drinks and chocolate I guessed correctly.
Stay tuned for photos of the final installation. Going by the impressive design plan it will definitely be worth all the effort, although I wasn’t game to say that to them as they set about creating more drainage holes.
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| Kate Parker, Elizabeth Marpole
© The Ponder Room
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The installation will be on show, along with works by at least 70 other local and interstate artists, at Cottesloe Beach between 4th to 22nd March 2011. For more information along with parent and tacher guides go to http://www.sculpturebythesea.com/
2 Comments
I saw this sculpture – very beautiful and it was faring quite well in some strong wind gusts too.
Briliant art. Great weekend viewing.
However, I am going to re-visit all the sculptures on a quieter evening – here was I thinking everyine was at the writer’s festival!
Good to hear it is still looking okay. Ghee I thought everyone was at the Writers Fest. judging by the parking situation 🙂