NATURE’S IRONY AND ART
January 1, 2008 by Jan Shim
On Jan 1, 2008 following an uneventful but peaceful calendar rollover except for the fire crackers (I think someone in my area got confused!), we spent the slightly overcast morning at the beach. Our favourite part of the beach seems to be washed up (or sometimes littered) with interesting items each time we walked on. One day it’s a shore full of dead jelly fish or stingrays, another day it’s full of visitors celebrating Dumpling Festival, but today …
© Jan Shim Photography
… I discovered mother nature’s new year resolution—canned crispy baby clams! her production cost must have gone up amidst oil prices and finally decided it makes more economical sense to outsource to Thailand. I found the this abandoned Smiling Fish brand can-on-the-beach situation hilarious!
Meanwhile, a stone’s throw away lies art only to be appreciated up close. From far you see nothing more than washed up debris slowing slowly becoming permanent feature of the shoreline when they’re allowed to weather naturally. If ignored long enough, they eventually become art.
Below is the most impressive piece I’ve discovered so far. It almost resembles ancient hieroglyphics though I see drawings resembling desert and cactus (remind me of the Arizona desert. I’ve visited the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and Navajo Tribal Park some time back). I estimate one-fifth of the tree trunk has these illustrations. It did cross my mind to cut portions of it and bring it home.
All images © Jan Shim Photography
The drawings on the bark is really amazing. i never notice that. Its a masterpiece.
Wow… Nature’s art! It is really interesting… But the can of baby clams…. Are u sure u REALLY found it abandoned on the shore. I find it awfully hard to believe it! haha…
Masterpiece it is. Isn’t life ironic when some of the most beautiful pieces of nature are found on the very surface yet we’re constantly reminded that beauty is skin deep and that we should not judge a book by its cover! Then there’s self-help gurus harping on about not sweating the small stuff and to always look at the “big picture”. We sure live in interesting times filled with contradictory messages. It’s llittle wonder health care costs have sky rocketed when people are driving one another insane!
Jaslyn, I seem to recall the ageless adage ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ you have a point that those words may in fact contain lies or deception. I’ll let you in on a little secret - the can’s appearance on the beach is no lie and it baffled me as much as it did you it’s origin. I had placed additional clam shells around the can collected from within my arm’s reach that were in abundance that morning. The can was neither posed nor moved for the photo op.
wow…. the last photo is amazing! talk about details…!
i guess you’ll starting seeing more folks wondering at the beach examining each logs in detail…
Amazing work! Thanks for sharing.
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