Norton Flavel.
Camera IconNorton Flavel. Credit: Supplied/Andrew Ritchie

Sculpture by the Sea artist Norton Flavel creates And Another for Cottesloe

Sara FitzpatrickEastern Reporter

HOMEGROWN sculptor Norton Flavel faces the same struggle every year when Sculpture by the Sea rolls around.

He wants to design an artwork that complements the landscape and imparts significance on an audience.

After much deliberation over recent months, he found the answer – for the fourth consecutive year – with a striking giant metal water drop.

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“One of the situations we face in life, and as artists, is to create something with some kind of significance,” Flavel said.

“You can spend so much time working on something and then it’s just there for a couple of weeks and it goes.

“So with this work I had the idea of significance – it’s just another drop in the ocean, another little thing that’s out there, that lasts for a second and then goes.”

Flavel said a further challenge was to get his ideas into some sort of achievable format in just six months.

“It’s not a situation where you’re paid upfront for your work so you have to make sure you have the resources to make it happen as well,” he said.

Titled And Another (not Fluid as published elsewhere), the artwork is remodelled from Flavel’s recent Sculpture by the Sea Bondi entry, Just Another.

“There aren’t a great amount of opportunities for artists to put their work out into the general public so that’s the main reason I keep entering the exhibition,” he said.

“Also, it’s a challenging environment – the beach – and much more interesting than a gallery, plus there’s interaction with kids and all sorts of generations, which you don’t normally get in a gallery space.

“It’s great to see what other sculptors are doing; it’s always a mixed bag.”

And Another will be suspended between two norfolk pines with the ocean as the backdrop.

THE ESSENTIALS

What: Sculpture by the Sea

Where: Cottesloe Beach

When: March 3-20