Doris Meyer Chatham's biography details a rather remarkable journey and provides a lot of insight into the artist's work. One turning point was her time spent with Atelier 17 in Paris in the mid 1950s. She learned lithography and screenprinting from Glen Alps in 1955.
In this color serigraph (screenprint), done in 1957, Chatham captures movement and controlled chaos, much like the tide that moves in and out, depositing and clearing flotsam, jetsam and jellyfish on the beaches. The deeper meaning suggests moving along with the forces beyond our control, bouncing off obstacles and drifting until settling down, only to be set adrift again, something the artist did throughout her life.
The medium of screenprinting in the 1950s, in which the inks sit on the surface of the paper rather than being absorbed into it, adds to the texture and meaning of the composition.