Artist Clare Lynn lights up Thorpe Bay beach (From Echo)

Artist Clare Lynn lights up Thorpe Bay beach

3:00pm Sunday 19th April 2009

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SOUTHEND seafront was awash with twinkling lights when an art student created her latest piece.

As the tide went out at Thorpe Bay, Clare Lynn set to work laying down more than 1,000 led lights to map the shape of waves.

“Some people walked among it all, to get a real feeling of it. It made the beach a special place to stand and contemplate.”

Artist Clare Lynn

The bright lights stretched for a few hundred yards along the shore and drew a crowd of intrigued onlookers, attracted by their otherworldly blue glow.

The spectacle, christened Sign of the Tides by its 26-year-old creator, could be seen from many homes near the seafront.

Clare is in her final year of a fine art degree at South East Essex College.

She hopes her most recent work will make people think differently about light and appreciate it more.

It took Clare about four hours to set out the lights. She said: “It was really successful.

“A lot of passers-by came down to see it and others came out of curiosity.

“They seemed fascinated and said it changed the seafront, making it a nice feature.

“Some people walked among it all, to get a real feeling of it. It made the beach a special place to stand and contemplate.”

At the end of the display, Clare had a slightly less exciting task – collecting up all 1,000 lights before the tide could wash them away – though the piece will endure in photos and film footage of the lights which will form part of Clare’s final degree work.

They will also soon be be posted on the YouTube video website and her own website, www.clarelynn.co.uk It is the second time Clare has drawn a crowd with an artistic display of lights. Last November she created a similar light installation along the central walkway in Chalkwell Park, entitled A Light Stroll.

That was smaller, and used 400 home-made paper boxes, filled with leds.

Clare, of Southborne Grove, Westcliff, has worked with light in various ways throughout her degree course, including a fibre optic and canvas display, inspired by her travels in South Africa.

Her most recent creation was praised John Lamb, Southend councillor responsible for tourism.

He said Sign of the Tides fitted in with the councils plans under its City Beach improvement scheme.

The scheme involves the redevelopment of the central seafront area with colourful new lighting, a wider footpath benches and a range of other improvements.

Mr Lamb said: “We welcome this sort of innovation.

“The council would be willing to work with local artists and see if something can be done again. We’d certainly be prepared to examine it.

“It attracts interest and is the sort of thing we want to do with lighting in the City Beach scheme.

“It’s why we want to get the lighting done in the first phase.

“It’s innovative and a new style which we can do and it works with what we want to bring to Southend.”

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