Sculptures by the Sea: Sydney at its best

A few nights ago, someone in Berlin asked me what I missed most about Sydney. After family and friends, I realised it was the sea.

More precisely, I think I love and miss Sydney's blues -its intensely bright skies, and its deep ocean shades.

The Sydney blues that I hold most firmly in my imagination are those you see while taking the cliff walk from Bondi to Bronte Beach.

Literally at the edge of the continent, this one hour coastal stroll captures all that is most seductive and marvelous about Pacific Sydney.

On summer days, the coast's negative ions and southerly breezes bestow a sense of profound well being. In autumn, the walk gives view to schools of wet-suited surfers who bob expectantly in the blue lull as they wait for offshore winds to return. In winter, when the less acute arcs of light soften the water's tones, a pod of whales might be spotted as you follow the bends of the coastline.

But it's in November, that this 2.5km stretch of coast is at its most wonderful. Then, its headlands, parks, beaches and foreshores are populated with sculptures from around the world

Sculptures by the Sea is an exhibition of more than a 100 works set against the blues of the Pacific. It's a free event that invites participation and interaction and its very public setting means that your laughter, sigh or puzzlement is quickly heard, and often echoed, by a stranger. As people volubly debate their favourite pieces, schoolchildren crawl amongst the legs of a giant metallic squid or rub their noses up to panes of coloured glass. Moved by art to create art, visitors take photos, sketch and commit images to mental memory.

A memory that I hold onto is of a blue glass sculpture that commanded a headland and refracted the coastal light. Its sensuous curves literally stopped people in their tracks. Struck by its wonder and pure loveliness, crowds of onlookers gathered around it to share a happy state of speechlessness.