Sculpture By The Sea

It's barely an hour's walk around the coast line to Bondi Beach from Coogee.  There was a cool wind blowing on Friday afternoon as we made our way around all these gorgeous bays and beaches to see the 16th Sculpture By the Sea - Sydney's most accessible and promotable art event of the year - but probably not the most profitable in these penny pinching times.

Heading north from Coogee Beach around Dunningham Reserve, Gordon's Bay was looking unusually messy with all that weed tossed on the beach from the choppy seas.

And Bronte Beach was practically deserted with not much swimmable water at this lowest of low tides.

We always try to strike a sombre demeanour as walk around the gorgeously situated Waverley Cemetery.  This part of the walk has been much easier since this 550metre long boardwalk was opened in 2009 (very grandly named the Sesquicentenary Boardwalk to celebrate Waverley Council's 150th anniversary).

And in no time we're overlooking Bronte Beach where hardy souls are braving the cool temperatures to celebrate the end of the working week with a late afternoon surf.

From Bronte we're quickly approaching Tamarama Beach where Sculpture By the Sea always takes over the beach area, setting the scene for the year's 3D preoccupations.

As always I am struck by the way installations work in and with this incredible environment: intense light, swathes of every shade of blue, white and yellow, reflections, movement, sea salt wind and playful people.

Two of our favourites on Tamarama Beach were: Surprise by Karin van der Molen (from the Netherlands)....

and the highly reflective Kaleidoscope Cube by Alex Ritchie (from Manchester UK).

Back on the headland walk between Tamarama and Bondi Beach I was struck by Jock Clutterbuck's Waterlily

and this shot of the day..which sums up the more fun and accessible aspects of this unique exhibition - Dave Mercer's View TM (in powder coated stainless steel, acrylic).  Dave's from Wollongong and is currently working in advertising!!

We loved Cave Urban's (a design collective focusing on sustainable living systems) Mengenang (memory) wind driven bamboo installation 0f 222 bird scarers tuned to D-minor which apparently began as a reflection on the 222 lives lost in the Bali bombings in 2002. An awesome work, in the prime position, on the headland overlooking Bondi and the east coast beaches beyond.

Sculture By the Sea did not have a top tier sponsor this year (a sign of the times) and it was quite noticeable that there weren't as many exhibits as previous years - although the quality of the majority is consistent with previous years.  We don't like to miss it anyway!!!!