I occasionally make a still life when I'm out walking with Kayla on an early morning poodlewalk. The materials used in the open studio are what I find washed up on the local beaches. This picture is a recent example of such an object:
This glass bottle with shells growing on it was lying on the sand on western edge of Depledge Beach, west of Victor Harbor. The picture opens up a world (the littoral zone) and it discloses the various elements within that world's network of interconnections. The artwork stands in a particular place and in specific relation to that which is configured around it. So argues Heidegger in his essay, 'The Origin of the Work of Art'.
The found object and subsequent photo of it as a still life places an emphasis on activity and process--on the artwork as a work. The glass bottle and attached shells is embedded as embedded within the relationship between world and earth (culture and nature).
This approach stands in opposition to the decontextualising the art work from its its specific historical and cultural world; and subjeetivising the truth-content of artwork such that they become vehicles for eliciting subjective feeling in a contemplating subject