CUT – FLOW

By Laurence O’Toole – View Artist’s Profile

The Cutting of the Lake is a particular local tradition close to where I live that is at once both dramatic and conflicted. Every spring the dunes are breached by a large mechanical digger to partially drain a lagoon called Ladys Island Lake. This was originally to expose flooded land but now serves mainly to expose the pilgrim path for Marian devotions at nearby Ladys Island. Modern Catholics consider the waters of the lake itself to be blessed and to have curative powers. Throughout the several years of observing and documenting this practice I am always struck by the startling contrast between the sacred status of the water during the summer pilgrimage season and the wholesale flushing of this same water into the Irish Sea. This cyclical activity and tradition may be ending soon with plans for a automatic sluice to regulate water levels.