on a high note
UNEXPECTED TREASURES By Dawn Klavon
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acations can be life-changing — just ask Manassas-based artist Robin Croft. As a child back in the 1960s, he and his family visited the Outer Banks, off the coast of North Carolina, almost every summer. The area is known as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” earning the nickname for the numerous shipwrecks there, caused by the coast's shifting sands and inlets. “They always fascinated me,” Croft said, adding that he actually saw shipwrecks on the beaches, “so that was an image that stuck in my mind.” In the many ephemeral outdoor sculptures he has made for 21 years, Croft said the image he has created the most is shipwrecks. On four consecutive annual visits to the Oregon Inlet area, Croft and artist collaborator, Mike Anthony, spent several days collecting driftwood, driftwood lumber, and manmade debris collected from a quarter mile stretch of beach. Two of these visits resulted in shipwreck images. “We would stack the lumber as if it was an old ship uncovered from the sand dune,” he said of the 30- to 40-foot-long art. His creations, though, were temporary. “They literally probably washed away within days of being completed — I have to expect that.”
hired. His commissioned art can be found at places like the 18acre Robinson Nature Center in Columbia, Maryland. Some of his art, he admitted, deteriorates with erosion, weather, and time, but Croft continues to imagine beauty that has never existed before. “I’m an artist; I love to draw, and it’s an outdoor drawing — very large scale,” he said. “I can never do anything that large in my studio…but this is just a way to express a bunch of different images that mean something to me.” The construction of the massive displays has become more complex over the years. “It’s really not anything that has a big secret to it,” Croft said of his building methods, which include weaving branches and forest brush into intricate patterns. “The hardest thing about it is that it’s physical labor.” The sculptures designed to look like shipwrecks are compelling. For example, “Shipwreck '08” was created on the beach just south of the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge at Oregon Inlet, North Carolina. Croft’s shipwreck was made entirely of carefully stacked driftwood lumber using only a few reused nails for stability. “Most of my work is done for myself with collaborator artist friends,” he said.
Croft’s Creations Consider just a few of the pieces he has masterminded (available to view on his Instagram account, @shipwreckartist). He collects old driftwood, brush, and discarded items to create breathtaking art — on beaches, near dams, in forests, and wherever he is
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May 2022 prince william living
Closer to Home More recently, apart from the shipwreck theme, Croft created “Snare” just 5 miles from his home. It’s an experimental, partially functional sculpture intended to trap driftwood when
