At high tide the seawall between the St. Francis Yacht Club and the Golden Gate Yacht Club is scarcely a match for the salt water rushing into San Francisco Bay. Waves sweep across the blacktop, eroding the balustrade along its edge, rearranging the large cement barricades intended to protect the expensive cars on the other side. A symphony of tiny bells and chimes, created by high winds rushing through the rigging of boats moored in the harbor, tinkles beneath the crash of the waves and the crack of the sails as weekend coxswains struggle to be free of the jetty. At this tide, the water level on the north side appears just a little higher than the buttress, and the sailboats seem almost close enough to touch; it's an optical illusion, but a convincing one. Boats pitch and tremble at eye level, their sails snapping with fury, their captains screaming orders into the gale, a high-expense drama of wind, water, rocks, and man unfurling on a fluid stage before yacht club members with binoculars and Bloody Marys in hand. But beyond the yacht clubs, at the end of the furrowed dirt path that reaches the tip of the breakwater, is a sanctuary for contemplation, not command, of the sea.
Like the jetty, the Wave Organ is comprised of chunks of marble and blocks of carved granite harvested from an old cemetery; and the alcove -- with its rough-hewn steps, rock portico, flat altar stone, and semicircular concrete bench -- resembles a Grecian shrine, but that is not what sanctifies the place. The Wave Organ, created by environmental artist Peter Richards and master stone mason George Gonzales, allows you to listen to the ocean through 25 "organ pipes" that rise out of the stones like periscopes. At high tide, the bottom three steps are submerged and the "patio" floor glistens; at rhythmic intervals gluts of saltwater rush through the lower pipes, making the approach risky, but this is when the Wave Organ is her most beautiful, filled with sighs and thunderclaps. Sitting in the portico, surrounded on three sides by stone walls and pipes, is like listening to the ocean breathe -- gurgling inhalations followed by long, loud gasps. This is what the ocean does in the dark -- the strange creakings and groanings; the thunderous claps followed by tinkles as delicate as crushed ice rolling down your throat; the tremendous roars and rhythmic plunking like that of pebbles being dropped into a ceramic tub; the creepy dank gurgles and metallic ricochets and baritone growls. Every pipe on the Wave Organ offers a unique sound. You must cling to the rock and risk a drenching to press your ear to the conduits at the patio's edge, because that hissing and gulping can be heard nowhere else on the edifice; the pipe near the northeast steps creates a vacuum so strong you cannot remove your ear until the wave returns; and in the pipe underneath the altar slab there is a hollow scraping sound, like a wooden chair being dragged across a basement floor.
"There's something down there," says 6-year-old Terry Moyen pressing his small ear to the mouth of one pipe.
"Just the sea," says his mother, taking a bite from an apple.
"Sounds like it wants to eat me," replies the boy.
Obviously a native, I think, as I make my way up the stairs.
The jagged gray visage of Ocean Beach comes into focus on a small screen in the lobby of Noh Space. The waves beat upon the shore as a small, slender figure clad only in a light silk shift crouches in the frigid surf. The figure is Takami, founder of the Mobu (Modern Butoh) dance company and co-producer of the San Francisco Butoh Festival. She faces the sea, her muscles taut, her fingers splayed, her tendons displaying fierce exertion; the water swirls around her knees, causing her to sink into salty potholes. She unfurls slowly, laying her face against the cold, wet sand, stretching her sodden limbs toward the water's edge, allowing the sea to rush over her hands and head.
Inspired by a sculpture by Coreen Abbott in which two huge unbaked clay figures were placed at the ocean's edge and allowed to disintegrate in the waves, Takami's solo work, Footprints Lost in Sand, follows the dancer through birth and decay, with the violent upheavals and slow quiet erosion of Ocean Beach undulating at its core. On the Noh Space stage, two streams of sand fall continuously from the ceiling as Takami moves from studied silence to lashing fury and back again. She stands bathed in blue-white light pure as foam, scraping clay from her arms and face, allowing the stream of dust to fall from her hands, echoing the sand's movement. Video images of Abbott's piece flicker across the back wall, pixelating Takami's face as she rolls across the floor like a stone, buffeted and pummeled by the sanguine red-clay tide. She rises, hissing like the waves moving across the beach, her muscles rippling beneath her seashell skin, seeming nearly as lovely and sad and powerful as the sea.
"Nature's forces transform life ..." she writes. "We will return to the earth as we experience the cycle of birth, life, and death."
"This is a funeral urn that is meant to dissolve back into the earth," explains Maureen Lomasney, the director of Funeria, which curates "Ashes to Art," an annual international exhibition of fine-art urns and reliquaries for funerary ashes. The delicate Ash Dwelling II is a humble vessel made of earth, bark, and seashells, but its execution is transcendent.
"I wouldn't recommend burying it without checking with authorities, though," warns Lomasney. "It was carried over from England by hand. So, technically speaking, it's foreign soil on a foreign shore, but it is really beautiful."
Of more than 600 urns submitted for the show, about 150, representing 10 countries, were accepted. They are made of everything from iron to blown glass to sterling silver to twigs; there are hollow wall hangings and flower vases with false bottoms, reading lamps and cigar-shaped humidifiers, pendants, toy boats, and rocket ships. Some of them are whimsical, like Tony Knapp's hollow-bodied robot, which sold early in the exhibition; others are utterly imperial, like Jennifer Gilbert's Blue Lotus, which rises out of a flower base like a Viking goblet crowned by a steel horn. In some cases, there is a choice between beauty and practicality.
"A pound of person fits in one cubic inch," explains Lomasney in a hushed tone, "so some of these would be more like keepsakes."
Despite Lomasney's good humor, she takes the subjects of death and art very seriously.
"Fear of death in this culture keeps us from fully experiencing our lives, and it interferes with our mourning process as well. We have always identified the depth and sophistication of a culture by their funeral rites and, here, we just hand it all over to an industry," she says, gesturing toward the large bay windows and the shimmering sea beyond. "It doesn't have to be that way. It can be brought out into the open, into the light."
An older woman enters with her adult son, pointing out pieces she likes, clapping her hands with delight and nodding emphatically when she stops by one. Another group enters, having received guidance from the nearby Changing Stages information center run in part by the Zen Hospice Project. One of the women buys a ceramic urn for the ashes of her son.
Feeling more inspired than macabre, I narrow my choices to two: an angular vessel cast in bronze with a heavy hinged lid, by Lynn Hayes and Carol Green (holds 2.5 quarts); and an ornate little box made of photo-etched copper, silver, and brass screws, by Carol Webb (holds 64 cubic inches). The latter would be a squeeze, but I'm pleased.
I step out onto the pier, feeling at home as the moist salt air settles on my skin.
And am I surprised when a couple of days later a woman at the local botanica warns me to listen to the sea, but never -- never -- to swim in it?
No, not really; I grew up here.
