Rusty's Beach

Low Tide

Low Tide
2007, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 50"

In the winter months, high tide is often in the morning and low tide -- sometimes really low tide -- is in the afternoon.

When I was in grade school, the lowest tides were often perfectly timed for when I was out of school (and shoes) and into shorts.  I'd run on the flat, lower beach that's only briefly revealed a few times a month, big breakers rolling and rolling until they were only about an inch high, and I would have a ball running and splashing through them.  It was easy to imagine that I was flying over much larger waves and the sensation seemed to propel me along until I was completely winded.  The beach was endless!

Low Tide is the newest of a recent series of surf paintings -- in fact, it's not finished yet, but should be in a few days.  The surf and sky are based on memories of similar beaches on the Oregon Coast, where I lived for many years, and where the low sand bars are just the same as on the beaches of Southern California.  I've recently gone back to painting "just surf" and am working simpler compositions on bigger canvases.  I plan to do some 6-foot and 7-foot-long paintings, as well.  I'll show more as they emerge!

House and ocean

In 1963 a big storm again damaged much of Surfside (see Surfside, California - 1956) and part of Sunset Beach. My mom had recently given me a set of oil pastels, and I liked their tendency to lay down a lot of heavy color. In the drawing below, I imagined being in the already wrecked living room of a doomed house in Surfside, just as a nasty green wave was about to clobber it! I remember doing another one just like it and giving it to a girl I had a crush on. She politely accepted the drawing, but now I wonder what she might have thought...

Surfside House and Big Wave
1963, oil pastel, 8" x 10"

I’ve always been attracted to the protective shelter of a house, yet in my paintings, I usually place a house only a few feet from the ocean, on a low sand beach, making it a tenuous situation at best.  The houses are old, proving they have weathered the situation for many years in spite of the odds.

I guess that over the years I have sublimated my style to reduce the look of disaster, but there are still hints of a real possibility that things might be changing soon. The beach is sunny, but the sky is changing and the waves are getting closer.  The cat is (still) unaware, and the items on the floor indicate other likely narratives!

Red Doors and Storm II
1998, watercolor, 21" x 29"

Early attempt at surf art

In 1960, the Great Chilean Earthquake generated tsunamis that savagely struck Hilo, Hawaii, and (less severely) the coast of California.

I heard the warnings on the radio of a coming “tidal wave,” and estimated the time of arrival, and what did my friends and I do?  We all went to the beach to watch it of course!  Nothing happened on the beach, since the waves were at most about 2 feet high, but they did surge into the local harbors like fast tides and tore up some docks and boats.

The idea of tidal waves completely captured my imagination.  They were probably the first type of "surf" that I tried to draw.  The idea of tidal waves and earthquakes together was even more appealing, so I drew the Golden Gate Bridge being destroyed by a combined hit!  I loved bridges at the time, too, and was fascinated by how a suspension bridge might look as it was being ripped apart of unbearable forces.  I was 13 when I drew this, so maybe it was also reflective of raging hormones...

Tidal Wave Wrecking The Golden Gate Bridge
1962, pencil, 8" x 11"