6 minute read
ART RECYCLED
The art of beach-combing
Plastic may be cheap, strong, light and versatile, but it leaves a permanent mark. Emma Clegg talks to Emily Barker whose art –fed by plastic beach finds in Cornwall –powerfully highlights the plight of our oceans and wildlife
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Acontainer filled with 4.8 million pieces of Lego fell into the sea off Lands End in 1997. And the pieces are still being washed up on the beaches today. Emily Barker –artist and collector of plastic on Cornish beaches –tells me that there is even a person called Lego Lost At Sea who devotes themselves to collecting this washed-up Lego.
“Finding a piece of Lego is a whoop whoop moment,” Emily explains. “I’ve found Lego flippers, Lego seaweed, a Lego octopus and a little Lego scuba man. [The marine link is not accidental as many of the Lego items in the container were nautical-themed.] They are all part of this cargo and they are still arriving on our beaches now.”
While finding a piece of Lego is a euphoric moment for beach plastic browsers such as Emily, it tells a shocking story of the state of our waters, which are overloaded with discarded plastic that is harming animal and human health. “Seabirds pick up small pieces of Lego or plastic, eat it and give it to their chicks. Their instinct is to do that. The chicks can’t break down food so they just starve to death,” says Emily.
Blue Planet II in 2017 raised awareness of the fact that birds and sea creatures ingest plastic from the ocean, and this includes tiny pieces called microplastics which can derive from plastic shopping bags, clothing and household and cosmetic products. Emily explains, “Microplastics mean that plastic is in the food chain. And when plastic is in water the plastic seeps chemicals into the water, so that’s going into the system as well.”
Emily –who lives in Bath but regularly spends time in Penzance –used to wander the Cornish beaches collecting driftwood for her artwork. “I used to love collecting driftwood to use for sculptures. But as time went on I started to see plastic, and gradually the driftwood filtered away and the plastic grew. Now you don’t see much driftwood at all.”
So the emphasis of Emily’s work changed, initially to incorporate beach plastic and eventually to use it exclusively. She doesn’t see herself as a commercial artist, although she does sell some pieces, but rather as a creative and environmental awareness raiser, highlighting the plight of the oceans and the pollution and suffering caused by plastics.
“I saw a dead ganet on a beach a few years ago with a fishing net around its neck. The net had trapped him. Everything I do in my work is about making people aware of what’s happening.”
It’s clear that the beach-combing is her favourite part but this is just the beginning of the process, as Emily’s finds form a vocabulary of materials for collaged artworks, then posted on her Instagram account. She also collaborates with various environmental groups, such as the Cornwall Research Trust, British Divers Marine Life Rescue, and a Cornish seal charity who go out and rescue seals and other animals trapped in nets. Emily is full of admiration for their work, but reflects, “For every one they rescue you wonder how many they didn’t save.”
The Cornish beach finds come from all over. Emily’s husband once found a plastic Bath Rugby sign: “Penzance seems a long way from Bath but there is a continuity between them and it’s plastic waste. My husband found a plastic board with holes on a beach on the Lizard Peninsular and it said ‘Bath Rugby’ –it was one of those arrow signs and there it was on the southernmost point of Britain.”
Emily’s work has different strands, much of it humorous, some figurative, like the gangster and the blue whale shown below, some simply groups of similar objects, like plastic spades or battered and fragmented fishermens’ gloves. She also uses the plastics to form letters, such as the ‘Here today here tomorrow’ shown opposite.
“My best friend is my glue gun,” she says. “Some pieces are very disposable –I create something and then I’ll take it apart. Or it gets used for something else. Or it gets recycled. Others are more permanent.”
There is a certain irony in the fact that Emily loves scouring the beach for finds. “It’s a magpie instinct that makes me do it. I go to a beach, look at the nice view and then go straight to find the strandline. If it’s a windy night, I work out the wind direction, and what will be the best beach to go to the next day when the tide comes in. Which is awful really, planning which beach is going to have the best rubbish.”
But if the plastic is left, it stays in the marine chain: “If it’s not picked up it will get washed out again. The beach and the shoreline is intertidal, so what comes in will go out.” So Emily’s scouring is helping to clear the beach –and other groups including the National Trust regularly do this –and her artwork highlights, in all its bright plastic colour, a crucial message about the threat these disposable items pose and the importance of protecting our waters and our wildlife from them. n
PREVIOUS PAGE, clockwise from top left: Do you believe in a glove resurrection?; Mermaid “The sea once it’s cast its spell, holds one in its wonder forever” (Jacques Cousteau); Beach Guardian; The Undersea World of Jack Clueso; An Exotic Specimen, New to Cornish Waters. (The flip fish, Latin name flopus flopus, common during the summer months, often washed ashore. Appearance due to human global influence); The Never-ending Story
instagram.com/emilybeachplastic;emilybeachplastic.co.uk
Travelling Hopefully
DUNCAN CAMPBELL
HAS BEEN DEALING IN ANTIQUE SILVER SINCE 1986
Even better than sleeping
Having been denied the opportunity to go out into the world looking for silver, I find I miss that essential aspect of shopkeeping enormously, much more than I’d have guessed.
There are times, I will not pretend, when getting out of bed at 3am facing the prospect of a long lonely drive to an antiques fair, is horrific. Despite the horror, I do still get up and very rarely miss a decent buying opportunity. I had previously assumed that this was down to some deep seated work ethic but I now realise that I am in fact a hopeless addict.
Purveyors of fine and rare antique silver are really no different to the old Klondike gold prospectors with their rusty pans and picks. The only goal is to find buried treasure. Of course I am always delighted to make £100 by selling an expensive piece of silver, but the intense thrill of buying something from a dealer for £5 that is worth £50 is infinitely more satisfying.
There is certainly a minor ego boost to be gained from knowing more than the dealer, but the thrill of the hunt is the real payoff. Moving optimistically from stall to stall, not knowing what treasure might turn up is completely absorbing.
In my former life in the City of London, we joked that the worst thing an oil exploration company could do was to find oil because the hope value was then converted into calculable, boring reality. Who wants to replace hope with certainty? Clearly not I.
I think this magpie instinct is what drives us to the dark, dusty corners of antique shops, passing by the dealer’s best items to find the undiscovered gem. The Del Boy dream that ‘this time next year we’ll be millionaires’ is no joke to me, it quite literally gets me out of bed in the morning. n beaunashbath.com; 01225 334234
