Turtle 1

The long, slow voyage

A traveller with no hurry

Out in the open ocean, far from any shore, a turtle is swimming.

It has been swimming for a very long time. It will swim for a long time yet. Above it, the light breaks into shifting ribbons on the surface. Below it, the blue goes down and down into dark. The turtle doesn’t seem troubled by either. It just keeps moving, one slow, graceful stroke after another, steering by something we can only guess at.

There’s a kind of wisdom in that pace. No rushing, no panic, no wasted effort, just a steady faith that if you keep going, you will arrive. Looking at a turtle, it’s hard not to feel that the ocean, for all its size, has made room for this patient traveller.

The artwork

This is a piece made to be studied up close. At its centre, a sea turtle glides diagonally across the coaster, flippers spread, head lifted, shell patterned with fine geometric plates. The scales on its flippers and neck are drawn one by one, giving the body a sculpted, almost three-dimensional feel.

Around the turtle runs a circular border, and around that, an ornate square frame. Scrolls, swirls and small rosettes fill every corner, interlocking like the decoration on an old medallion. The effect looks almost like carved relief, as if the turtle were swimming through a window in a richly ornamented wall. Every time you look, you find another curl or flower you hadn’t noticed.

The pale tones of the engraving cover nearly the whole face of the slate, giving the piece a soft, antique glow.