"Growing up in central Europe (influenced by Slovak fairy-tales, Greek mythology and western literature) as a landsman surrounded with mountains, I’ve developed a bit mythical and sublime concept of the Ocean. Observation of Pacific seaside upon my arrival to OC had great impact on me and resulted in series of poems and photographs from which “Flowers of the Sea” was composed. I’ve superimposed multiple layered images of waves, plants and sand to generate “figures” — refer to the underlying imagery from my early youth. Dreamy, sacral and fairy-tale like compositions are my interpretations of spirituality and physicality of the ocean. I hope that my photographs will inspire viewers to find their own stories and to hear voices of imagination that are liberating on individual level but ultimately evoking the idea of preserving the unique oceanic pacific platform we all share.”

One morning
I unveiled a path to the ocean to my son

We watched the blue wave
coming toward us from far away
While we stood in silence
Enchanted by endless spaces

The Sea’s mouth
Showed us playful faces

From nowhere a child came
then second, third and fifth
And commenced the pendulum game:

Run, jelly creature tags you—change of motion,
Wave swept away the game to the ocean.”

I watched synchrony of kids with a sea
Goodbye afflictions!
Beautiful childhood, my feet in the sand, a careless chase,
Salty vapor rains into my face

Through clouds,
Hues are filling my sights
Yellows of sand in white Salinas
of ocean are changing tones
dry sand is fighting tints,
Then wet makes deep ochreous rings.

Turquoise waves are drumming
on zillions of broken shells
Shshsh! O bang O bum
Shshsh! O bang O bum

Dance of hues, metamorphoses, conversions and mutations
In the rhythm of water the world seems to be Aware and Conscious-
United in One and so precious, so precious.

Surprisingly the Sea begins to spit out Flowers:
Salty Roses, Tulips, Ambrosias,
Bellflowers, Belladonnas and Lilies.

To meet my feet
The ocean throws fanciful bouquets.
I am engaging myself into stories,
stories of flowers of the sea, as they speak to me
all in once — I clearly hear them and I see.

The sea betrays only what destiny inquires.

When fatigue slows down children’s jumps in wet sand,
They go home to their land,
Fifth, third, second and than the first.
Tired from many games and waves,
we too say: “… enough.”

My son slips his hand into mine,
and we both let our eyes fly
Far away to “the mother of the sea.”

Secretly we screen our moments
And we hear kind voices of flowers.

From remote blue places
The sea brought us a gift today.

Another wave is gently rubbing our feet in the sand.
We stay lonely on the coast- hand in hand.
And I feel his little hand in mine is changing into a bouquet of flowers!


I tightly hold Flowers of the Sea
in my palms.

—To my son Alesh

 

* Life is more than merely staying alive.