|
|
|
What on earth is
this lot all about then? Well, boats, obviously, but then what is it about
boats that makes them so eternally fascinating, whether big barges, wooden
narrow boats, plastic dinghies or tiny toy boats? Yes, yes, water even more
obviously, but what are the special qualities that make this water so
obsessively thematic in our day-to-day dealings with the world? In my case
it certainly isn’t wetness, for my basic idea of a boat is to keep me out of
it. Is it thirst, a deep internal understanding that we’re mainly made of
the stuff and couldn’t live without it? Hmm, maybe, but that seems a bit
seriously subconscious for a basic understanding of my own nature. I work
visually and practically most of the time and I suspect my obsession is much
more sensory than spiritual. |
|
|
|
Looking at
pictures, or painting them, or taking a walk by a country lake or an urban
canal, the water always provides a mixture of two visual ingredients that
are keys to our understanding of what we see-- horizontality and
reflectivity. Still water has to be perfectly flat, in direct opposition to
gravity, and by telling us what’s level one way it indicates to our eyes and
mind what’s vertical the other. It tells us which way up to stand, that the
tree at the water’s edge is leaning over, that the boat is heavier at one
end than the other. Meanwhile the shininess is reflecting the light of the
sky back up from a level below the horizon, and on still water will be
precisely duplicating the view upside down. That mirror image immediately
presupposes a state of calmness, of nature in equilibrium, and I suspect
that this visual balance is close to the heart of our navigational subject. |
|
|
|
But it’s not just
what we see of course, it’s what we feel both physically and in our
understanding of boats and the experiences we have of the act of floating.
It is always a source of pleasure to me that I am able to lean against my
boat and personally physically shove thirty odd tons of steel, wood and
assorted clutter across the canal. Yes, it’s hard work at times but it still
seems to me to be a major miracle that I can do it at all. I love the magic
of this equilibrium, of gravity and buoyancy pushing against each other, of
these massive forces of nature doing a balancing act that human ingenuity
then learnt to use for its heavy transport needs. Eureka! Am I alone in this
innate pleasure? Happy Christmas! |
|
Tony Lewery, The Brow, Ellesmere, December 2002 |
