Sitting on the Bottom of the Bay

A story from Brandy Gale.

Harbor seal

Brandy, a synesthetic artist, had been terrified of the water from early childhood when a bad in-water experience left its mark. But many, many years later, Monterey Bay changed all that. Brandy shares the lengths she went to to overcome her fears, how she learned to scuba dive and then received a welcome-back gift from a playful harbor seal.

BRANDY GALE is a plein air landscape painter and photographer. After having painted in a studio for years, in 2001 she was encouraged to get outside by one of her mentors, J. Baldini. Brandy fell in love with painting in nature with all its challenging distractions. She also enjoys working outdoors because of her congenital full-spectrum synesthesia, which means that all five of her senses are crossed.

Due to her synesthesia, Brandy tastes colors when she hears sound, or she might feel a texture from a visual experience. So when she’s outside painting from life instead of a photo, she may smell what she sees, then another sense is triggered, then another, and she puts all of that into the painting.  If the mountain seems really red, she paints it red. The synesthesia informs her painting a great deal, and informs her photography as well. As she says, if she has a synesthetic response to the subject, she makes a photo or a painting and it makes all the difference!

Most of her paintings are done along the intertidal areas of Fiji, Hawaii and California, and she is currently focusing her underwater photographic images on tide pool critters of Monterey Bay.

Brandy grew up “all over the planet, all over the place.” As a military brat, she was born in Marville, France, but grew up in Belgium, Germany, the US and Canada, as well as France.

Brandy was born with synesthesia. It’s the only world she’s ever known, but the first week of school, the teachers called her parents and said there’s something really weird about your kid.

Brandy lived in Canada off and on most of her life and had been settled on a charming island in Lake Ontario, Ca called Quinte Island, also known as Prince Edward County. She now lives happily in Bonny Doon, CA with her partner, and a spectacular view of Monterey Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

You can watch Brandy’s story on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/4POe0Bd5e6M

SITTING ON THE BOTTOM OF THE BAY

I was always terrified of water. I had a really bad childhood experience in the water, and so I just never went in again, and I never went swimming. I’d go to a pool party, and I’d not go in. I went to Barbados several times and didn’t go in the water. You know, I made paintings from the shore, did photography, and enjoyed all of it, but water, no, that didn’t happen.

But then, many, many years later, I moved here to the Monterey Bay area. I’m looking at the ocean thinking I’ve got to get over this! And so I went back to Canada, and I found an instructor who teaches adults who are terrified of swimming, to swim! And she took baby steps. You know, put your feet in, and I’m bbbllllahh, gonna be sick, but anyway, eventually she got me in the water, and I learned to swim.

And in 2013 I put my head in the water for the first time since I was a kid, and it was like – I came up, and, “I can do this!”

So I came back to the Monterey Bay and I went snorkeling. And it was really great! And I wasn’t afraid, and I was really comfortable. So my partner said, “Wow, you’re doing really well”.  And I also had a good experience in Hawaii snorkeling that involves dolphins, but that’s another story. So my partner said, “Why don’t we teach you, get you lessons at least, to try scuba diving?” I’m like, “Well, ok.” And we’re talking about someone who would throw up if she went into the kiddie pool. I’d have a panic.

So I took an introductory course in scuba diving and sat on the bottom of the ocean and just loved it. I was so calm, and it was terrific! So I went and got certified. And during my certification in Monterey Bay, I’m trying to do the little life saving test they make you do, down at the bottom, and you know, switch your regulator and do buddy breathing and all that. And there’s this wonderful harbor seal who wants to play with my flippers, my fins. And my fins are bright yellow. 

So I got to do all of these exercises with this wonderful, frisky harbor seal. And I passed the test, thank goodness. I had a wonderful teacher, Dave Babineau, over at Pro Scuba.

That harbor seal just made me feel so welcome. It was like I was being welcomed to the ocean after all these years. And this harbor seal encouraged me to go back out with my camera and start exploring the Monterey Bay area.

I started exploring along the shore and the tidepools and discovered that my real passion was shooting these little invertebrates, tiny little nudibranchs, or sea slugs. They have the wildest colors and some of them swim like this (this way and that). They move in the water so beautifully and are all different colors.

And sea anemones! All these wild sea anemones! I’d never seen a sea anemone. They’re so exotic, and almost erotic! I love shooting them. They have amazing colors. Probably, I don’t really know for sure, from what they eat, you know, different kelp and so on.

I have my favorite sea anemones, and I go back and photograph them. And some of them, I’ve been told, are really old and been there forever and ever. So I’m very interested in sharing time with them and exploring them.

Sea anemone

What do they taste like?

Each one has a different taste! Some have no taste. From a synesthete’s point of view, they do have personalities, they do have tastes, they have textures. And watching them when they’re eating is really fascinating, the things that they spit out. They have the detritus from their meals all around them and on their bodies, like beautiful décor. They are almost jewel encrusted, because of the bits of shell and so on left over from their meals. I just find them fascinating, and I look forward to exploring them a lot more.

Thank you for sharing your story with us Brandy!