My mother and I both shared a love of being beside the water. Some of my fondest memories of her involved such moments beside the water together. The time we walked along the canal in Phoenixville, saw the fall leaves reflect in the still water and I photographed out shadows side-by-side. The time we drove up the coast of Maine to see a school, that I later determined was too far away, where we saw the waves crash against rocks and had the most amazing lobster rolls that melted in our mouths. The time we collected sea glass in Scotland with my aunt, cousin and sister, which we used later as poker chips for Texas hold 'em while eating terrible Indian food that resembled something we passed along the shore. The night we sat in total darkness just listened to the sound of waves lapping at the beach.
These memories, and more, ran through my head when I stood along the rocks on the edge of the Arran islands. I wished it to be yet another moment that I could share with her. If you have any spiritual beliefs, you can argue that she was still with me in spirit. And it is certainly nice to think of it in such a sense. That she is always with me. And standing on what felt like the edge of the world, I pretended that she was.
Mesmerized by the waves and power of the ocean, etching out nooks and crannies in a the rock, I felt compelled to film them on my iphone. Had I anticipated that I was going to do anything with them, I might have tried to get a better quality recording, but then again, it was all I had with me at the time.
It was only after returning to the studio back at Moore, that I began playing around with the video of the waves. I had been working on a piece with seaglass which was a metaphor for tragedy and healing. The sea played a big part in how the glass was smoothed, it seemed fitting to create a companion piece featuring water.
I always saw the final video being projected large. The original showing was a disappointing monitor screen. The full effect was not reached. There needed to be more impact. I wanted to invoke the same sort of awe inspiring feeling I had felt standing next to the sea as I filmed it carving into the the rock on which I stood.
It got it's second chance when it came time to work on my thesis. I wanted to try again at projecting the video in a large format. I went through several stages and ideas for how it might be projected. It the end, I ended up with a perfect structure that emphasized not only the personal connections and metaphors that related to my mother but embodied the nautical theme I had begun to work within. An old tent from my grandfather's sailboat allowed me to project the video on two sides and have the viewer sit underneath. Surround and protected. Post Tot Naufragia Portum. After so many Shipwrecks a Haven(or port).
The title couldn't be more fitting. Not only was it a Latin motto of my family name (Hine), but it symbolized my struggle both with accepting my loss and with figuring out how to make the piece itself.
I've decided to keep up the use of Latin titles for my work that I consider to be part of a Memorium Series. The original Latin phrase that inspired me to take this direction was Memento Mori, Remember your mortality. In acepting my mother's death, I too had to accept my own inevitable demise. The Memorium Series includes all the pieces revolving around death, mortality, and spirituality. The wave video has also come to know a new name for itself as a piece that could stand alone, Perpetuo Pontus. It essentially means Perpetual Sea. It seems a little redundant once translated, the sea is always perpetually in motion. But the Latin words sounded better together.
