This piece was a bit of whimsy, rather than a more pre-meditated design. I will often end up with interesting off cuts from other projects. In this case I had a handful of these interestingly sculpted pieces when I cut down a set of hand rail elements to fit their frame. The pieces brought to mind strange squid or fish tail fins. I welded each to an length of round rod, each ending with a centred circle loop. These were linked together, inspired by the fish hook chains we had used as kids to hold our afternoon's catch.

On my trip out in August 2010, a number of pieces of kelp had washed up on the beach there. I had recently worked up a major piece (for the Reade / Maxwell project) based on kelp. Those might have been a bit different if I had seen some actual samples of the stuff! Although my earlier work had always meant to be stylized, I was struck by the series of pockets running up the lengths of the fronds. In the water, these are small pouches filled with air, which help keep the plant upright.
On the way home from L'Anse aux Meadows, we had stopped at 'the Arches' Provincial Park. One of my companions had never seen it, and frankly I needed a short 'wake up' break from driving. The beach there is composed of wave rounded stones, ranging from egg to head sized. I was struck by the complex flowing patterns on this piece of granite.
Right off the start, I had envisioned using the stone as the focal point for a sculptural piece. In the end 'Kelp on Stone' is the result.