The Art of Our Seas

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  Octopus on mural at Maritime Museum, San Francisco

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Fish, marine mammals, sea turtles, mollusks, crustaceans, seaweed, coral reefs and many more living beings share this planet with us, all underwater. Here is a colorful look at different kinds of art celebrating Earth’s sea creatures.

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If you have ever spent time exploring the wild waters below the ocean’s surface, you know what inspires sea art. It’s a world of quiet, endless wonders; and one that we still think about it when we’ve come back onto land.

If you have not been under ocean water, there is plenty of art to highlight the sea’s magnificence. We have talented artists to thank for that.

Once you physically submerge underwater, the cares and thoughts of your life on earth seem to melt away. Talking and human noises drift off with the waves, and even gravity quietly vanishes.

I once snorkeled over a giant clam in the Great Barrier Reef. There were no voices guiding me toward it, no signs or crowds. It was just the giant clam and me. It was nestled in the sandy sea bottom and I was perhaps 50 feet above.

At first it looked like a brown blob, but I found it intriguing and slowed my strokes, and then recognized the outside scalloped shape as something different.

When I realized it was a giant clam, I hovered over it for quite awhile, but it never moved, and eventually I swam on. I have no photos, only memories, of this experience.

But fortunately I have Dale Chihuly’s elegant version of the bivalve mollusks, to remind me.

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This American glass sculptor of world renown has created enormous sculptures celebrating the endless variety of colors and shapes in the sea world.

Born in Washington State and influenced by the Puget Sound, Chihuly has mastered unusual glass art embracing his passion for the sea and nature.

This is a gallery room in Seattle’s museum devoted exclusively to Chihuly art: Chihuly Garden and Glass. It is entitled Persian Ceiling and is a ceiling installation of glass “seaforms,” to use his word.

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When you stand in this room and look up, it is the next best thing to floating among the tropical fish and coral reefs.

More info: Dale Chihuly Wikipedia.

Although I am not a scuba-diver, I have had terrific snorkeling experiences. In Australia you have to be taken out in a boat beyond the shore to get to the Great Barrier Reef. One of the boats we were on also featured an underwater photographer as part of the package. His camera was huge, not much smaller than a dive tank. These underwater photos are his.

From them you can see how real-life underwater scenes like these two below…

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  Fan Coral, Great Barrier Reef

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  Great Barrier Reef

… can be translated into art like Chihuly’s. They bring the glory and mystery of the sea alive.

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  Glass chandelier, Chihuly

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  Chihuly Sealife Sculpture

In addition to glass sculptures and wall paintings, sea art comes in many forms–too many to present here. If you live in or have visited seaside towns, you see it everywhere.

San Francisco, the City by the Bay, showcases a lot of sea art, and not just in galleries.

This staircase in San Francisco was a 2005 neighborhood project. Various fish, seashells and sea stars dance in the blue mosaic pieces. From the top of these steps is an expansive view of the Pacific Ocean.

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  Sixteenth Avenue Tiled Steps, San Francisco

Miles away at the Ferry Building, the inside promenade is decorated with tiles. My favorite is this octopus.

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  Octopus mosaic tile, Ferry Building, San Francisco

The Maritime Museum, also in San Francisco, is a monument to ships and sea art.

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  Maritime Museum rear veranda, Sea Forms by Sargent Johnson and Mohammed Zyani.

Now part of the National Park Service, the museum’s interior walls are covered with underwater murals created during the 1930s by Sargent Johnson and Hilaire Hiler. Exterior walls include sea-themed facades and tile work, all of it funded by then-president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal Works Progress Administration (WPA) project.

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  Maritime Museum interior mural, San Francisco

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  Sea Turtle mosaic, Maritime Museum, San Francisco

This octopus chair (below) on the beaches of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico is a whimsical salute to the sea. It is joined by several other brass chairs entitled Rotunda by the Sea, by Guadalajaran sculptor Alejandro Colunga.

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There is so much life and wonderment in our planet’s seas. Any way that the glory of the sea can be highlighted, is yet another way to express the importance of its gift and survival.

Written by Jet Eliot.

Photos by Athena Alexandria unless otherwise specified.

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  This is a real fish, a Napoleon Wrasse, on the Great Barrier Reef.