Sand that collects in the tall grass at the beach creates dunes as well as the perfect canvas. Notice the faint trail of tiny tracks in the center of the picture.
Tall grass protrudes from the dunes, their long slender leaves bending down, touching the sand that has collected beneath them. The sand is the perfect canvas. Encouraged by the wind, the leaves stretch as far as they can be blown while their roots keep them anchored in place. They stroke the sand, drawing half circles. As the wind subsides, the blades rest, some still touching the sand. Wind continues to gently move them but only enough for the blades to twist in place, creating hatch marks and scumbled lines along the sweeping curved strokes made prior.
Long blades of grass bend to the sand where they sweep back and forth in the wind, drawing partial circles around them.
When the wind subsides the blades of grass rest. However, the drawing continues. The wind still moves the blades, which twist and dot, adding extra touches to the sweeping lines drawn earlier.
Dried and bronzed, fallen leaves that have dropped from trees make their own etchings. Their stems carve steady paths in the sand while their pointed papery edges contribute unpredictable lines and stippling. A smooth, flat rock inches out of its original position in the sand with the help of a gust of wind. The resulting small concave it leaves behind is a dollop of shadow.
An oak leaf travels across starry, wet sand, its stem burnishing a trail behind it while its tips make lighter contributions.
Even a rock adds to the sandy art. The abrupt ridge it leaves behind as it inches away casts a dark shadow on the backdrop of an evenly wavy pattern formed by the wind.
Where sand alone spreads across the beach, wind works away at designing a series of shallow wavy ridges. In some areas, this uninterrupted pattern is accented with tracks curtesy of the dunes’ animal inhabitants. Long trails of hoofprints stretch across the beach. Tiny tracks made by tiny paws embellish the edges of the grass. Some are fresh, their outlines neat and pronounced. The fainter ones, whose shapes have been blotted into mere impressions with the wind, are older.
The half circles that clumps of grass draw are almost completed by the shadows that the same blades cast on the other side.
The artists do not cease their work. The ongoing project requires ongoing attention.
The grass, the rock, and all of the artists residing in the dunes make additions, and change their minds, and start over, creating spontaneous and fleeting works of art. Walking in the dunes is stepping into their studio and watching the artists at work. It is here where we can watch grass draw.