Raking the Beach: East Meets West, 2022

My prompt came as a video from Dan Kwong, a performance artist and storyteller from Los Angeles. On a Pacific Ocean beach, a curious object floated ashore. 

As an artist I have long been inspired by Japanese art and design, especially Zen dry gardens. Considering Dan’s Japanese heritage and our Pacific and Atlantic beaches, I envisioned sand and raking as “East meets West”. 

Based on the video’s mysterious bundle, I created tools for raking - wrapped within canvas and assembled on site.

In a traditional Zen dry garden there is a composition of rocks of various sizes and positions, representing islands. Translating East to West I replaced the rocks with carefully positioned beach chair, towel and cooler on a public beach on Eastern Long Island.

Using three rake heads, the act of raking the sand is a meditative practice creating abstract compositions revealing an essence of nature.