the spirit of water; the self in the sea (16 November 2016)

Narelle Autio, Nippers I, 2014

The water is your friend. You don't have to fight with water, just share the same spirit as the water, and it will help you move

- Aleksandr Popov

Narelle Autio, Entropy, 2006

The brilliant thing about swimming is that, while you're doing it, there's nothing else you could be getting on with, like the ironing or sorting out the children. My mind goes into free-float mode; some of the best ideas for plots come into my head while I'm ploughing up and down the pool.

- Sophie Hannah 

Narelle Autio, from Watercolours, 2001

But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

- Khalil Gibran

Narelle Autio, Nippers II, 2014

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), It’s always our self we find in the sea.

- e.e. cummings

Narelle Autio, Flying Lessons, Clovelly, NSW, 2001,

When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Narelle Autio, Mermaids, 2001

The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence.

- Jules Verne

Trent Parke, Untitled 7a, from Seventh Wave series, 1999-2000

Believe in yourself, not only in swimming, but in life itself. You always have to have fun. You have to have an open mind. If you're not enjoying it, don't do it. Life's too short.

- Debbie Meyer

Trent Parke, from Seventh Wave series