The oil age hut

I have been really busy creating some new work for my next exhibition Hutliving Here and There which opens at Bridport Arts Centre on Sunday 29th April, 2012.
Centre stage will be The Oil Age Hut. Uniquely, my hut will provide a convenient and useful way to sequester (store) oil locally, potentially providing a ready source of oil for your children and future generations to ‘mine’ for their energy needs.
Plastics - even ‘disposable’ ones - last indefinitely in the natural environment so they will always be there for you and your family when you need them. What better legacy for our children!

 A range of my other work, inspired by earth, air and (of course) water, is also in the show.

The launch is Sunday 29th April 2pm - 4pm - if you are in the area, it would be lovely to see you there.
I will also be giving a gallery talk about my work on Saturday 19th May at 2pm.


Exhibition details:
Hutliving Here and There is at Bridport Arts Centre from 29th April until 19th May. the gallery is open Tues - Sat 10am – 4pm.
The exhibition will also include an exploration of the heritage of shepherd’s huts in Dorset and work produced by four local schools and Bridport Youth Centre. For more information about the Hutliving Here and There project, visit Burr Projects C.I.C.

If you cannot make the exhibition, I will be adding details of my oil age hut to flyintheface.com in the next few weeks.

Trashion makes a splash!

 I really love the work of American artist, Marina DeBris, especially her Trashion couture: fashions made from street & washed-up beach trash.
You can see more on her website... and hear more about it here.

Looking up, not down

An occupational hazard of my usual work is an inclination to look down as I walk, always keeping an eye out for what treasure (or horror) may have washed up in my path...
Not any more! For a current project I am on a new mission, searching the woods where I walk each day for... tree houses.

 

Watch this space...

A new helper

 I have a new helper when collecting on the beach... well, he's not exactly helping but he is in training.... (believe me, he needs it!)

Our mad pup (who is nearly old enough to know better) now likes to collect plastics on the beach too. Here you can see him with a dustpan he found... but then lost. With helpers like this, I am finding it hard to have enough hands to collect and carry rubbish, take photos and prevent strangers from being 'bounced'!

Life can be tough on the beach.

Nurdling for beginners

I have just returned from a fantastic week of walking and collecting on the stunning North Cornwall coast... in a heatwave...seafog... and gales....

Beaches there seem much cleaner than here in Suffolk - though after three days of gales from the west, this can all change as the transatlantic plastic rolls in...

However, even in mild weather, the tideline at some beaches was a shock to see: thousands of nurdles and tiny plastic pieces as far as you can see...

tideline at Constantine Bay

tideline at Perranporth

a typical 'cell' of marine litter and debris on the tideline at Perranporth

Many of these plastic pieces are nurdles - small resin discs which are the raw material for the manufacture of plastics. As a result of spills, these are found on beaches throughout the world.

Jane Darke (Wrecking Season film-maker and artist) and I went collecting at Watergate Bay to harvest nurdles to show to children in schools.

If you haven't been nurdling before, here's how you do it:
Scoop up the plastics at the high tide line with a sieve or colander, shaking to remove as much sand as possible.

some of the unsorted debris we collected

Tip into basins of water to allow the sand to drop to the bottom. Remove plastics with sieve and lay out on trays to dry.

drying trays of rubbish on the Aga

the unsorted debris with just the sand and larger pieces removed

When dry, pick through to sort out nurdles from the rest of the debris. We also sorted our debris into polystyrene pieces (there were lots), other plastic pieces (there were even more) and natural debris (wood, seaweed, feathers).
WARNING: this takes hours and is best done over a beer!!

some of the wood, feathers and seaweed we extracted

 

some of the plastic pieces

... and the nurdles!

Finally a bowl of nurdles emerged... We counted a sample and weighed what we had picked out and - incredibly -  the small soup bowl held in excess of 9000 nurdles!!! And these were collected from just a few metres of shoreline at the top of Watergate Bay.

Nurdles are a pervasive pollutant found in billions on beaches all over the world and are major concern not just because of they are often ingested by seabirds and other marine wildlife but also because the resin pellets accumulate dangerous organic pollutants such as PCBs and organochlorine pesticides which can work their way into the foodchain.

For more about nurdles, follow this link. And if you have lots of nurdles on a beach near you, why not follow our beginner's guide to nurdling and take part in Dr. Hideshige Takada's global survey of pollutants in nurdles at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology.  Here are Dr Takada's results so far - it's sobering reading...

pristine Perranporth beach...until you look at the high tide line

So next time you are walking on the beach - wherever in the world you might be - look closely... you might not like what you find.








 

More hanging about...

Full-on day installing my hanging lines in the Dovecote Studio at Snape today... thankfully with amazing help from James, who unlike me, clearly has a head for heights! Lots still to do but it's looking exciting... (unlike my studio at home which is very plain now all the rubbish has been boxed up and shipped out - might even have some space to do some painting!!)

Hanging about...

 I recently took a group of artist friends to explore and collect along the tideline at Covehythe. As ever, the beach was stunning but with erosion continuing at a frightening pace...

But I was presented with a mystery... On a previous walk at Covehythe I found over 70 balloons along the tideline... this time virtually none. Have the estate agents, banks, fast food outlets and charities finally got the message about balloon releases, I mused?
But the mystery was soon solved when, towards the end of the beach, I found that a fellow collector had got there before me and created this...

... so we will still get this...