The roll of the sea, the waves of change, and riding the future.
Where I surf the waves are irregular and wild—they gather steam from global swells and mix up in a frothy mix that is distinctly inarticulate on the Northerly shores of the Washington coast, by comparison rollers running California.
In my quest for the waves and the sea, I’ve been in the water all over the world, from Bali to Tofino, BC. from Costa Rica to the North Atlantic, from Kaua’i to Portugal.
The waves work in sequenced strings—they travel like sound, the farther out you are, the bigger the waves—which, in distance from the shore, are increasingly overhead waves. And depending on the time of year, and the tides—mostly at high tide—the bigger curls are farther.
As an engagement, an experience, being in the water, serene or storm–the art of surfing is a holistically sensate contact with the wide current of her, the sea—it’s hard to get out, farther out to ride, in the midst and mist of the effervescent turbulence
I carry a protectively-sheathed camera to shoot my surfing family. And to shoot the waves. I surf all year round.
Winter is best. Wildest.
The water ranges from 47º in winter, to 52º during the summer—
and at night, late summer, you can see the wave’s glowing curls as
the bioluminescence flowers in the turbulence.
I started body surfing in college, coming from the Evergreen State College in Olympia, but my affinity for the sea goes far back to my childhood on the Jersey Shore, at 5 years, I’d head into the sea with my Dad, on his shoulders,
and we’d keep walking out, farther
and father, into the waves.
I learned, quickly, the notion of getting under the waves—on his shoulders—the luminous, quivering green light beneath. Lots of seawater inhaled—and fear of repeating the experience, which we did, for years in a string of summers. “Don’t be afraid, I’ll be with you…” Still, we’d get underwater and I’d be trying to shuffle a sort of paddling to stay afloat.
This was a resequencing of fear—going back, again and again—further, Father, fear.
But the key was the emergence of beauty—and the quest, past fear, to the enlightenment of the waves—getting out there, getting beneath, riding back to shore.
Still, today, paddling out, some overheads curl up, revealing their ever-heightening faces, and the sheer torrent shows itself, a massive force, threatening. And I think about the refuge of the sea, the beauty of her majesty. Wonderment and exhilaration—past the fear to new understanding. A new awareness. A trial by water.
What does this mean to branding?
Fear is a postulate of risk—to embrace change—
now, as ever, is fraught with fear.
The bold move forward.
A wave is a ripple of a larger swell—it’s a story that travels across the world.
Any wave has a force—there is a seething aliveness and complexity to its energy—and in brand, this is manifested in the people that made the story in the first place and those that carry it forward; it’s the brand experiencer’s reflexive narrative, carrying this personal, relational story forward.
The liquid fluency of the expression of a wave, its explosive cyclicality and myriad undulations are mesmerizingly complicated.
The wave symbolizes the power of an initial ripple that turns into a curve that, in the arc of its narrative, changes in the circumstances of its geographic passage, what lies beneath is evidenced above in the surface modeling of the wave character—one might contemplate a brand initiation, its droplet, its stone in the pond, that rolls out, regionally or globally—and responds to the geography of trend.
Perhaps a key to this contemplation is the notion of metaphor, a referential premise or symbolic value to an act, and, longer form, examining that as an allegorical expression, the depth of meaningfulness in action.
Like the wave, there is the curve of the curl, and its structure is
a direct correlate to what lies beneath.
It is the only substance on earth that exists as a gas, liquid and solid.
Tim | At the Sea
Digital: girvin.com | Built environments: oseanstudios.com
And may it continue with those new wave riders, my legacy.
