Pinery driftwood

[vaneramos]

On Friday we drove to Pinery Provincial Park near Grand Bend and hiked more than a kilometre to the beach on Lake Huron. The weather seemed to threaten more thunderstorms, like the one that had drenched our campsite the night before. Suddenly the sky turned blue. It took us by surprise, and we both ended up with sunburns.

But until then, it was one of the nicest beach days I can remember. The sand was littered with driftwood, which inspired me to create a work in the style of environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy. Brenna helped me collect the wood. This dome is actually a miniature version of one he built on the beach in Nova Scotia, as told in the documentary, Rivers and Tides, which I've written about before.

Just as we were leaving and I paused to take a final photograph, a teenager playing bocce threw the jack (a baseball, actually) to land within inches of the dome. Of course the game would proceed with several more balls being thrown as close as possible to the jack. An appalled girl, perhaps his sister, darted forward to retrieve the jack, stammering compliments on my work. She returned scolding him, "You beast!" This thing is supposed to be ephemeral, but I was glad to escape the beach without witnessing it carelessly shattered.

If you'd like a closer look, there's a gallery of eight images on Flickr. There's even a puzzled reaction from a strolling gull.