Making Friends With The Neighbours

So this is to be one of my new favourite images of women's surfing... Surfer is Ashleigh Browne and photo is by Kane Brown (click their names for links to their Instagram accounts) Screen shot by me and my phone!

Given my experiences with Kurungabaa, I'm always keen to support an interesting project about surfing. Ice Cream Headaches, a book and photo project about surfing in New York, is the latest one that captured my attention. To be honest, being a city dweller myself, any project about city-related surfing grabs my attention, and New York surfing culture in particular, bucks the ideals of surfing in pristine nature, of surfing in warm, clear waters, of surfing as accessible. New York has a strong coastal culture and the beaches look amazing. While it sure looks like it has an enthusiastic surf crew, but actually surfing it does not look so easy. This project is focused on folk who live and surf in New York, telling surfing the city's stories through their experiences. The two chaps producing it have a crowd-funding page for the production of the book, offering a range of options from throwing in some cash to pre-purchasing books, t-shirts, art prints, and even surf lessons...

I'm always learning new things about the coast, the beach, the surf, the waves. Mostly though, it's with my feet planted firmly on the ground, or floating in or on the sea. I know the ways different waves form up and crash from the water. I know how the sand looks on the ocean floor bottom from sticking my face through the surface, diving down to touch it, or being scraped along when I wipe out. I know the rocks from headlands or from avoiding them at different tides, the shoreline from how sand sticks to my feet, from beach-combing, sun-baking, digging holes, building castles, I know the littoral zone from wading on long walks, paddling with children, passing through on my way to the surf. I know the effect of coastlines swell lines from sitting on headlands, walking up cliffs and watching from on high, but always with my feet planted firmly on the ground. Drones have shifted some of that, but most of the drone images I have seen have been of people surfing waves, not of coa...

This is old, but I came upon it today when I was looking for images about human movement. as·phyx·i·a from Maria Takeuchi on Vimeo . Via: This is Colossal The post I found it on linked to this piece of video art of a consistent walking body/being adapting it's architecture to the spaces it encounters. Also, mesmerising (especially from about 6.30). Again, via: This is Colossal

I've been really enjoying Robin Lanaei's illustrations that she's posting on Instagram . It's so easy to recognise myself and other kinds of surfers in her drawings, sometimes, when I don't even want to! I like that she's drawing about the everyday things that happen in the lineup, the internal dialogues that we have with ourselves, the things we'd like to say and do. I like her take on the moments of shame and embarrassment when we miss a wave or kook one, aware that the lineup is watching and judging us, while at the same time making sure we know it really doesn't matter. I like that the girls she draws aren't trying to be mermaids or #gurfers or anything like that. Instead, they're just people - grumpy and cranky and determined and sneaky and funny and fun. They seem to be white girls, for sure. But they're certainly recognisable in so many ways and with the kind of complexity and real-ness that I'm always searching for in any kind o...

I love seeing new perspectives on the sea - ways of imagining the ocean that I've never dreamed of. Noah Sabich presented me with images like this today, when posted this very beautiful and evocative paintings by  Emil Nolde  (1867-1956) on Facebook.  The Sea (date unknown) Blue-green Sea With Steamer (date unknown) Emil Nolde (7 August 1867 – 13 April 1956) was a German painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and is considered to be one of the great oil painting and watercolour painters of the 20th century. He is known for his vigorous brushwork and expressive choice of colors. Golden yellows and deep reds appear frequently in his work, giving a luminous quality to otherwise somber tones. His watercolors include vivid, brooding storm-scapes and brilliant florals. Nolde's intense preoccupation with the subject of flowers reflect his continuing interest in the art of Vincent Van Gogh. (Via ArtStack ) (ima...

One of the things I love about the sea - well, about the world really - is the way it simply defies containment. We can make boundaries of and for things, but unless we work hard to keep them as we wish, they simple crumble away, or grow over, or spill out, or flood. That idea makes me think of parts of Robert Frost's poem Mending Wall : Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,  That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,  And spills the upper boulders in the sun;  And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. ... Before I built a wall I’d ask to know  What I was walling in or walling out,  And to whom I was like to give offense.  Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,  That wants it down. The shifting, changing nature of the sea - where the water line will be each day, each month, each season; the shifting sands; the currents that bring weeds, bluebottles, whales, warmth - all of it is far beyond my control, and t...

I saw these images on Facebook the other day and couldn't stop staring. They're the work of artist Samantha Keely Smith  and they're beautiful.   You can see more of her work over on her website , and if you're in the USA (and in the region of the gallery over on the NE coast), you might want to check out her exhibition .

Jodie Barsby shredding in the Maldives. Photos via Jodie's blog .  Not sure of the photographer, but I think it is Swilly .  Sincere apologies for the limited info!

Gerry Wedd: Clever clogs. This would make a delightful companion to the one I already have . Hmmm... Check out more of Gerry's recent work  over on his blog .

I happened upon some of these awesome illustrations by Leo Greenfield , over at  Not Without My Do-Rag .      Aren't they lovely. Leo Greenfield's illustrations apparently tend to be fashion and style based. They capture people wearing clothes in context, rather than being about the clothes themselves. Does that make any sense? It's kind of like an illustrated version of The Sartorialist . From Greenfield's blog : Leo Greenfield is a journalist trapped in the body of an illustrator. His drawings concentrate on documentation and communication, as he illustrates from memory the ever-changing space of street life and culture. On paper Greenfield impresses the silhouette and patterns of contemporary dressing, subsequently creating intimate social portraits of places and their communities.  See? I particularly love the ones I posted here, because you know they're from the beach. You know that is where they were headed or where they had been. Sometimes ...

Images by Keegan Gibbs , via el verano sin fin .

I have been taken by the similarities in the form and feeling of waves and clouds and mountains for many, many years now. It's no great insight that there are some intersections and reflections between them - nature's pretty clever that way. But these images by Alessandro Puccinelli really highlight how strong the intersections  between the sea and sky can be. Spending today indoors in a library in Melbourne, I can't stop drifting Puccinelli's 'Intersections' portfolio and getting lost in them. (I've seen these images in a few places now, but most recently on El verano sin fin , so that is who I will link them via)