Wanted: Water Artists

The way I see it, we watershapers can look at ourselves in one of two ways: as diggers of holes in the ground that hold water, or as artists working with one of the most exciting mediums on the planet.

For a lot of reasons, I like the second of those options, because the first is passive – the sole goal being to contain the water – while the second gets me more deeply involved with a truly amazing and malleable material.

Once we look at water the way a painter sees pigment or a sculptor views stone, we see a potential for dramatic contrasts: Water has a soothing effect, for example, yet it can be tremendously exciting and invigorating. It can ease your tired muscles, or it can challenge you to intense exercise. It can cool you off when you’re hot; it can warm you up when you’re cold. It can float in the air like a butterfly or grind away a mountain.

For all of the beauty and interest we can add by using various construction materials in and around the water, that stuff is flattened without the key, central ingredient in watershapes – that is, good ol’ H2O.

WATERCOLORS

It’s that H2O that affords each and every one of us the opportunity to become a true artist, to create something that has a genuinely profound effect on everyone who ventures near it or boldly decides to take a dip.

To my mind, that profound effect is the hallmark of the true artist: He or she has an ability to translate a broadened and enlightened perspective into a work of physical beauty and emotional power. In other words, artists are able to look at the world and use what they see to create meaningful works within a given medium. And even though we may not exactly think of it this way very often, I believe that is exactly what happens with many watershape designs.

If you doubt it, take a moment to consider all the ways that we see water in our environment, both man-made and natural. Now consider how those influences have already shaped our work.

The pool industry is full of dramatic examples: The sight of water spilling over a dam wall first inspired the vanishing edge. Zero-depth entries were created to mimic beaches and shorelines. Waterfalls and streams come from nature, too, while distinctly architectural forms such as fountains take their inspiration in natural forms such as rainfall, surf crashing into the shoreline, geysers and natural springs.

Not long ago, I was contacted by a potential client in the Midwest who wanted to know if he could have a wave pool in his backyard. Took me back a step, I must say, because these extremely sophisticated hydraulic systems – designed to mimic one of nature’s most dramatic aquatic forms – cost waterparks and resorts hundreds of thousands of dollars.

As I considered this inquiry, my mind rambled back to experiences I had as a young man (well, bum) taking care of a swimming pool for a local seaside resort. Every now and then, I’d spend the night in the pool house and invariably end up listening to the sound of the waves lapping against the shore just a few feet away. Sometimes it was gentle, other times it was intense. Both ways, those are among my most pleasant memories.

As I think about beach entries in swimming pools, these memories have inspired me to consider ways that, even if I can’t introduce three-foot ‘combers into this client’s backyard pool, I can recreate the sound and effect of surf lapping onto the shore. I’m not quite sure how to do it just yet, but I know it can be done – if not for this particular client, then for another.

That pool, when it comes, will fall within my definition of a work of art.

DRAWING ON EXPERIENCE

Earlier this year, I designed an elaborate watershape for a client who wanted a waterfall that created a flume that would spill into a swale that would feed a stream flowing beneath a cantilevered deck.

This, to say the least, was an elaborate design and resulted in a beautiful set of drawings – but it was one of those situations where the package far exceeded the client’s budget. I was paid for the design; the customer took the drawings and went off to consider her options.

Several months went by before she called me back. When she did, she was really excited, she said, because she had found a sculptor by the name of Bart Rubenstein who created amazingly elaborate sculptures that all use water in one way or another. She had seen several of his pieces on the Internet, bought one, and wanted me to meet with the artist to discuss how we could work together in using her acquisition.

What she had found in a single piece of sculpture, compact and efficient, conjured enough of that sense of waterfall, flume, swale and stream combined that it satisfied her desire and brought me back into the loop to help bring it all together. I have to say I was pleased to be asked to participate.

So I met with Mr. Rubenstein and had the pleasure of reviewing his portfolio and watching a video on his work. I was completely blown away by his inventiveness and creativity in blending water, metal and other materials into complex, kinetic structures. After the meeting, he sent me a letter that contained a single passage that I believe really sums up this entire issue of water-as-artistic-medium:

“As if some mysterious primordial force were at work,” he writes, “the sounds of water and its flow penetrate and mesmerize one’s soul like no other material. Whether it be water gliding around the stones of a river or a raging waterfall, water can elicit a sense of delight or pensive introspection. These seemingly contrasting responses originate from a common emotional core.”

What struck me most about my experience with Mr. Rubenstein and his sculptures was watching the way that my client responded to his work. It wasn’t that she was taken by the technical complexity of these moving structures. Nothing about the hydraulics, engineering or sheer inventiveness impressed her the way it impressed me. Rather, it was the beauty of the water itself: She was simply fascinated, utterly transfixed by watching it move.

BRUSHES AND PALETTES

That brings up a point: I think that sometimes, we watershapers sort of fall in love with the engineering and technology available to us.

Let me be clear: I’m in no way implying that technical skill isn’t of huge importance; rather, what I’m saying is that we tend to pursue technology with the thought that bigger is better and more is better and that the virtue is in the technology rather than the effects it can create. With this approach, artistry is a weak cousin – and I don’t think any watershaper should let that happen.

Last year, when I attended The Whispering Crane Institute in Nelsonville, Ohio, a few of us took off and toured a canyon that was first carved by glaciers and then sculpted through eons by streams and rivers. I described this visit in detail in a previous column, but it bears mentioning again because of what it says about how watershapers should look at water and how our clients do look at water.

We all walked through this amazing landscape half expecting to find dinosaurs just around the bend. It was so clearly ancient, but also clearly a work in progress as you could see where flooding had washed out a walkway or bridge. As we moved along, I caught myself staring at a tiny waterfall.

We knew from the signage that this was in fact a major cascade and tourist attraction in winter and spring, but we were there in August (and in the middle of a terrible drought besides), so just a trickle was on view – probably no more than runoff from irrigation in the parkland above.

I thought to myself, if a pool builder designed and built a similar feature with these huge boulders and dramatic elevation changes, it would invariably be made with an aggressive flow of water and the biggest pumps and piping he or she could lay hands on. But when I stepped back and considered things from an artist’s perspective, I drank in the subtlety of this small flow and appreciated the way it made the effect even more captivating.

Try it on for size: These moments of personal epiphany can happen at almost any time.

My wife and I went sailing recently. At one point, becalmed at anchor, I noticed that Gina was quietly staring off into the distance. At first, I was worried that maybe I was in trouble and getting the silent treatment, but when I asked, she told me that she was enjoying the way the light from the sun was reflecting on the water’s surface.

“It looks like millions of sparkling diamonds dancing on the ocean,” she said, which started me thinking about the way light reflects off the ripples on the surface of a swimming pool and how, as a watershaper, I have this wonderful opportunity to use such an effect to excite and delight my clients. I thought about the way the moon looks when it rises over the ocean or a lake, or the way a single light source can either dance on the water – or reflect and capture the stillness of a glassy surface.

THE PLAY OF LIGHT

It wasn’t long after Gina’s observation that I met a client who asked if I could manipulate lighting so that the water would reflect a rippling effect on the ceiling of an overhang near the pool. Again, I was struck by the thought process at work here.

We’ve all seen the ripples of light reflecting on walls, trees or trellises, but I had never before considered deliberately using this effect in a project. It’s another instance in which a client had been inspired by an incident to seek out a way of repeating the pleasure or that experience over and over again.

The artist in me appreciates that level of insight in other people, while the businessperson in me increasingly realizes that there is real currency – emotional, financial and aesthetic – in this sort of rapture.

I’ve had experiences of my own that I’m now thinking about recreating in my watershapes. One in particular is the effect of mist and fog, something I’ve enjoyed often during Genesis 3 schools at Morro Bay on California’s central coast. Morro Rock is amazing – a mountainous boulder that erupts from the bay. Most mornings it starts off draped in fog, and I’m fascinated by the various ways in which it gradually reveals itself. Combine that with a bit of New Age or classical music and it’s an experience I’m happy to pay for – truly evocative on an emotional level.

Sure, we may not have that sort of dimensionality or weather and tides to work with in our watershapes, but I’m now bound and determined to find evocative ways of using mist and fog on a smaller scale to conceal and reveal rockwork or landscaping adjacent to the water’s edge.

One last example: I’ve used mist and rain effects for many years in some of my spa designs. Recently, I’ve been thinking about how these effects might be used on a larger scale with pools to create a new sort of evocative experience, and I was happy to see several fixtures at the NSPI Expo in Las Vegas in 1999 that would serve the purpose.

Just think what an amazing thing it is to be caught in the rain and the feelings of exhilaration it evoked in you when you were a kid. That in mind, this idea of creating rain and using the sound of rain to add yet another layer to the backyard experience really takes shape for me. It’s yet another remarkable aesthetic effect that’s there for anyone who chooses to use it.

THE REAL WORLD

I think there’s an understandable tendency to regard discussions like this as pretty esoteric – interesting, perhaps, but not all that useful to people wrapped up in the day-to-day world of designing, engineering and installing watershapes. It’s a steel and concrete thing, they say, not an abstraction.

I used to feel that way, believe me, and I’m still known to share a humorous remark or two at the expense of the overly artistic among us. As I’ve delved further and further into the importance of purely aesthetic issues, however, I’ve found that there is tremendous practicality in understanding the emotional impact of water, and I now realize and proclaim with confidence that this is, in fact, what our clients are really after.

At first, the idea of our being artists may not fit so neatly on a group of people who toil in the sun laying steel, setting boulders and shooting gunite. Some of you might even get a chuckle thinking of yourself or the local pool builder down the street putting on airs and trying to become some sort of Picasso or Michelangelo, but I say enjoy the thought.

I say enjoy the thought and let the path to true artistry begin with the water by allowing yourself to see it for the amazing thing that it is – and the amazing thing your customers want it to be in their projects.

Brian Van Bower runs Aquatic Consultants, a design firm based in Miami, Fla., and is a co-founder of the Genesis 3 Design Group; dedicated to top-of-the-line performance in aquatic design and construction, this organization conducts schools for like-minded pool designers and builders. He can be reached at [email protected].