"Ebb Tide" and the companion piece "Neap Tide" were paired together as a single fountain, commissioned by a large bank for it's corporate headquarters. During the course of time, the bank merged with another, and moved to a new space. Then after a bit of this and that, the wrought copper fountain pieces were disassembled and donated to Penn Sate University and placed as sculpture in an outdoor setting on the Delaware County, PA campus.

I have not seen these pieces in their new location, so I have no idea whether it works in it's new setting or not. At any rate, it will be different than the statement made, placed on the original site. The two levels of the fountain basin were important for the total effect of this work. However, I do like the idea of recycling works and a change of settings for a site specific piece may provide yet another dimension to the concepts not explored originally.

I wanted to create a work that conveyed the sense of force, power and energy of a particular place. This place, which was so very special to me for a period in my life, is Deer Isle, Maine.
I designed the central piece as a landscape of this shoreline at it's lowest tide level. At low tide, there is a starkness and almost naked quality to a very narrow region of the ecco layer. It was almost embarrassing to have everything revealed and exposed, but of course that isn't really the case, if you bother to look. Hidden under dried seaweed, sunken stumps, crevasses and carcass costumes, you'll find life teeming with heat and excitement.

I tried to convey this mysterious and hidden quality by having the main work set apart from it's immediate surrounding. The copper shoreline stands high and precarious on spindly legs, almost as if it were being thrust out of the sea. It appears to stand as an alter of this microcosm of life, celebrating it's own existence.

Hardshelled creatures lie exposed to the rapacious appetite of the gulls, helpless in their inability to escape. Small marine life contained in the heated tidal pools await the return of the cool ocean, to be refreshed and revitalized. Seaweeds become dulled in appearance, dormant and their juicy bubbles beginning to deflate beneath an unrelenting sun. The fountain piece itself contains pockets of tidal pools and a microcosm of small sea creatures contained with them. There is seaweed flung across rock forms, clinging ever tighter to the security blanket of granite.

When the tide goes out to sea, the shore line coughs up it's last reservoir of water, until it almost dry heaves. The retching landscape then is so completely empty that it nearly quivers with joy at the return of the high waters. It is life and death twice a day, every day. The water trough behind the fountain, draining out, is the symbol of this emptying feature.

Time is so rigidly marked in and around the ocean shore line. You can count on the dolphins passing across the bay each day at three twenty pm. I always knew when to look for them, coming down from the north, but I never did catch the time of their return trip. I tried to express this time element through the spacing of the two companion pieces, placing the Neap Tide work on a higher level pool and a distance away. The drainage slots along the lower basin wall, creates a rhythmic pattern of step time, along the way.

The temperature along the shore also is a timely thing. In the mornings I would go out with a specific number of layers of clothing on a summer morning and every hour and a half or so, would start to peel off. Eventually I would be completely naked on a remote rock, then gradually layering up again until I was fully clothed by the time of my return. You could also feel this temperature change around the fountain. Next to the Neap Tide piece, which had water burbling from the fountain head, was a cool place deeper within the interior space. Around the Ebb Tide piece, which is very near the two story plate glass window, you experienced the dry heat of the sun.

The compound curves and twists within the design of the fountain reflect the hand of the Draftsman who lovingly traces layer after layer of water swirls, the igneous intrusions captured in the marbled surfaces of the stone, the plant forms and sea forms both within and without the aquatic atmosphere. Everything moves around the sea, even standing fast is a moving thing.

I spent two years at sea as a young man and in the stillness of the predawn light, in a dead calm sea, I was always aware of motion. The sea swells, imperceptible around the moving ship, heaved and rocked us ever so lightly and I might best describe the sea experience as a womb experience, only there are no protective walls to cling to.

I'm a city person now and have yet to generate an interest in creating stylish corporate works or political/social comments on the urban environment. I bring with me a different experience that I hope can be shared with others in this harsh and difficult setting. But I find an upside to this condition as well. I can embrace the contrasts of hard and soft, kindness and cruelty, knowing that I need not be captured by it. The human dimension so vividly exposed within city walls, tell me other things that I need to know.

Chris Ray