This weeks inspiration – seashells!

by Dina | Mar 27, 2013 | 

Thinking about my blog last night merged into thinking about our holidays next week. It’s Easter and we have a lovely isolated week at a beach house on the Great Ocean Road. I was thinking about what to write and all of sudden I remember how inspired I used to be by seashells. Its not even ‘used to be’ it is in fact regularly inspired; for some reason, every time I get a sniff of the salt I get really creative.As I type I can now see how much of my work is ocean inspired, and how many sea forms I have created, and how sea shells pop up in my home, office and art all the time. Odd, I never ever noticed before! My recent worksMy last three wire sculptures all include sea shells and are sea form inspired, several of my recent bracelets are ocean themed and include pearls. Even my home decor has spattering of seashells on the shelves like the image at the top of this post.

Dina Goebel – sea urchin 2, photo by Ray Price Inspiring artistsLooking again at my Pinterest boards, I also see more ocean themes and seashells. I find it strange that I am unconsciously inspired by ocean things. I would never had said I was a beachy person or that my work is often ocean themed. I actually don’t wear the color blue and rarely decorate with blue, plus I would never buy a blue car.

Dale Chihuly -amazing seaform glass 

Deb Cocks – etched and painted glass plates  My earlier worksI can remember my very first lino cut print at school, was a seashell. My first dot paintings were seashells. My first cast resin panel was seashells. My first mosaic, seashell. My first still life.I have never actually thought about why they inspired me, at times as artists we often simply ‘do’ rather than think. Perhaps for me, when moving into experimental work where my focus is the material not the message, I possibly pick a safe subject matter. It gives me a consistent yard stick to measure the success of my technique and offers familiarity so my concentration remains focussed on the materials in my hands.What is your ‘safe’ subject?

An early still-life, Dina Goebel 1983

My first mosaic – a shell mural

  As a childI collected stuff, in a previous blog I admitted to collecting dead stuff, but it was when the new neighbours Sue and Steve moved in did I grow a passion for collecting seashells with Sue. We would head off down the Great Ocean Road and collect shells which I would research and label. To this day my shells are all still with me albeit in a box. I still collect shells every time I get to the beach and I have cartons of them ready to use for decorating, in artwork and beading and for pure inspiration. The future of seashellsAnd now, as an evolved artist, doing ‘seashells’ without purpose could be an empty sensation. My last sculptural form with copper wire was a sea form where I experimented with weaving the newly acquired copper. I had recently been interested in basketry and always had a weird delight in working with wire. Again while experimenting, I chose a seaform although I do remember being inspired by Dale Chihuly at the time.As I lay in bed thinking last night I decided to take my wire on holidays to the beach, a new sea-form was emerging in my head. Again there is no particular message in this artform, again it is experimenting with materials. So today I made a quick sketch while on the phone.

seaform sketch – Dina GoebelWho knows, if I continue to develop my art in this medium then I may free up the time to consider the purpose of the artform, by then my hands will be experienced enough in the medium to deliver that message to the viewer. Nothing like having happy experiments and accidents to take artists into their next path.ALWAYS THE ARTISTDina