The assignment from my second mixed media class was ‘music’.
For me the music was an experimental piece that I heard at the Western Front over 30 years ago called ‘Wood on Wood and Water‘. Someone was drumming on driftwood with driftwood (the ‘Wood on Wood‘ part), while in the background the ocean surged (the ‘Water‘ part).
Many years later, on a sketching trip on Vancouver Island, we came down the path at Point No Point, and there it was right in front of me, Wood on Wood and Water: a pile of bleached driftwood against blue-black rocks with the ocean surging in the background.
A driftwood chair on the beach, held together with rusty wire, abandoned on the beach, provided inspiration for a xylophone instrument (the ‘Music‘ part).
Ultimately it didn’t work, and after the xylophone accidentally cracked I removed it, and went back to work on the painting, ending up with this which I described as: A vertical panel showing a segment of the beach at Point No Point on Vancouver Island. There is a wall of blue-black stone, dark grey sand, pale sandstone worn away into sinuous shapes and pools that contain the sea and its life.
At the bottom is the red seaweed from this rock pool in the vicinity.
http://www.batzgallery.com/photos/pacific_coast/san_juan_trail.html
Point No Point is between French Beach Park and China Beach Provincial Park.
The Western Front was one of Canada’s first artist-run centres and is still going strong: http://www.front.bc.ca/
Batz Gallery 
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