Meditating on lines and stripes at the pool

Looking at an exhibition of contemporary textiles at the Sturt Gallery in Mittagong recently made me think of lines and stripes at pools. Called Parallels, artist Barbara Rogers explored the "diversity and language of the stripe; the simplest of all patterns..."

Some of her silk textiles reminded me of particular pools especially ones she created in shades of green and blue.

When I saw this one hanging in the gallery space I immediately thought of the Bondi Icebergs.

But it also reminded me of lanes and ropes at chlorine pools.

Valley Baths, Brisbane.

Lines and stripes are everywhere at pools.

Splashed across an entrance.  

Cooma Pool

 In the design of buildings.

In the towels that hang around the edges of the water.  

Bondi Icebergs Pool

And rest on rocks and concrete waiting for their owners to emerge from the pool.

Wylie's Baths, Coogee

They're on boardwalks and grandstands.

Moree Artesian Baths

 And on seating and stairs.

Wylie's Baths, Coogee

On the doors of change rooms like these multi-coloured stripes at the Annette Kellerman Pool.

Sometimes they are fleeting like the shadows that fall on surfaces around a pool.

Northbridge Baths

 Or in the colours reflecting lines in the water in the pool.

Spring Hill Baths, Brisbane

And occasionally they form naturally in the underwater beauty of an ocean pool.

Wylie's Baths