6 minute read
Saltwater Joys
By Linda Browne
When the pandemic put the brakes on his tile business, Topsail resident Mike Batten put his creative energy to work, crafting driftwood treasures that must be seen to be believed.
Who hasn't gazed into the blue sky on a nice day and picked out shapes of dancing butterflies, or perhaps dragons, angels or birds in flight among the puffy white clouds? Or perhaps you’ve seen the weathered visage of an old man in a granite cliff face staring back at you while on a hike. There are so many cool shapes, figures, colours and contours to discover when you head out into the great wide open. You just have to open your eyes. Mike Batten sees shapes in driftwood. And his incredible creations are truly something to behold.
Do You See What I See?
Mike has always been a beachcomber at heart, and growing up right next to the saltwater in Foxtrap, Conception Bay South, there was no shortage of coastline to explore.
“My childhood home was right next to the beach, literally a 30-second walk. My whole life, me and my buddies were always hanging out on the beach, having fires. And beachcombing was always something that I was fascinated with because there’d be days I’d find, like, it could be a basketball, it could be an old lobster pot, just any old relics that were washed up,” he says.
Over the past year or so, Mike began picking up pieces of driftwood from the beach in Topsail (where he now lives) and the surrounding area, bringing them back to his workshop with the intention of doing something with them later. Eventually, he amassed about 15 storage tubs filled with pieces of various sizes, shapes and colours.
A tile installer with his own business, Mike’s work came to a screeching halt when the COVID-19 pandemic reached local shores. All of a sudden, he found himself with more time to explore, and it wasn’t long before inspiration came calling.
From the pieces of driftwood that previously lay scattered along the beach like piles of old bones, his lively creations started to take shape, in jigsaw puzzle fashion.
“It all started off with finding pieces that look like a particular object. I was walking on the beach one day and I found a piece that looked just like the side of a seagull. I don’t know if everybody would see the same thing that I’m seeing, but as soon as I saw it, I was just like, wow, that kind of looks like a feather,” Mike says.
“So if one particular piece, and by piece I mean a full object, has 50 pieces of driftwood, it was pretty much inspired by one or two pieces… So, it could be something as simple as a wing, and then I’ll find another piece that looks like a neck and I’ll just fasten it together.”
Driftwood Delights
The very first piece that Mike crafted was a two-dimensional moose head from a piece of brown, weathered driftwood. “It kind of looked like fur, the grains of the wood were kind of lifted off the wood. And there was a knot in the wood that was poked out. So as soon as I’d seen it, I said, ‘That looks just like the eye of a moose,’” Mike recalls.
He posted a picture of his creation on Facebook and it wasn’t long before the comments, and enquiries as to what else he could make, came rolling in. He ended up selling the driftwood moose head to a woman in Vancouver, BC, and he’s since received many requests from others to create particular pieces.
“The response I got was overwhelming... and I was kind of like, okay, well, maybe I’m onto something here,” says Mike, who now sells his pieces under the name Topsail Driftwood.
The COVID-19 pandemic has allowed Mike more time for beachcombing with his family, finding new materials and inspiration for his creations.
Mike’s driftwood sculptures have taken many forms, including a humpback whale, a lobster, an octopus, a fish jumping out of the water, a feeding pelican, a mare head (constructed from driftwood and a large, rusty nail that Mike discovered on Fogo Island), and the famous codfish that’s so closely tied to Newfoundland and Labrador’s history and culture. He also lovingly crafted a lifesized driftwood tribute to his old dog, Blue, a black Lab that passed away in November.
All his pieces exude an energy, despite their static forms, that flows from shape to shape in a dance that imbues them with life. The thought process and creativity he harnesses to make them, he says, isn’t so different from what he draws on for tile installation, when he creates backsplashes and tile work with particular patterns.
Mike estimates he’s made about 30 driftwood sculptures between March and June of this year. It takes him anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of weeks to create a piece, depending on its complexity. The codfish turned out to be the most challenging piece he’s worked on.
“It was the first three-dimensional object that I made. So the challenge of creating something that has to be perfect on all sides... I found that was very difficult,” he says.
While things have been slowly getting back to business as usual, including Mike’s day job, he doesn’t plan on pausing his driftwood art. In fact, he hopes to hit up some craft fairs in the future and, eventually, work up to creating even bigger pieces. What he’s done so far, he suspects, “is only the tip of the iceberg of what I’m going to do.”
For Mike, nothing beats walking along the beach, breathing in the salty sea air (sometimes with his new four-legged friend, Moose, a yellow Lab) and picking up the pieces just waiting to be brought to life.
“There’s something fulfilling about finding something that most people would literally walk over, or just kick, or just throw it in a beach fire. To turn something that’s literally garbage into something that could potentially end up in someone’s living room or cottage, to me that’s very rewarding,” he says.
“Especially when you look at pieces of wood that you might see, like, a rusty nail sticking out of it, you’re just like, where did this come from? Was that a piece of a lobster pot? Or was it a piece of someone’s boat? Who knows...? Because that piece of wood definitely has a much longer story.”
To see more of Mike’s work, visit him on Facebook or Instagram @TopsailDriftwood.
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