On An Island Beach

Amid the fog and surf on a French Atlantic island I made mandalas of shells and seaweed and tide turned pebbles nestled in the sand. Black and white spiraled out together, expanding back to back, like matter and anti-matter, two faces of the same energy made manifest. Nearby a tree of life mosaic grew from ochre stones and kelp while time stood still...

By the next morning the tide had erased all signs of my work. I found my way down the beach to a place where a cluster of World War II bunkers jutted from the sand like the remains of a forgotten civilization. In contrast to the natural beauty of the site or the calm, meditative state of creating ephemeral art here was something bulky and intrusive, built by fellow human beings for purposes outside my emotional ken... Yet, in a transformation accomplished by intensely colored graffiti symbology, this particular group had become a monument vastly removed from its sinister gray counterparts in Normandy or along the mainland coast nearby. Take a walk with me...