Found Beach Plastic

I grew up in Michigan where my family always picked up debris as we walked along the shores of the Great Lakes.  At some point I began saving my found plastic bits to use for a collage.  After years of collecting plastic from beaches in Michigan, Canada, California, and Washington State I realized I had enough material for dozens of collages!  It was a bittersweet moment.  I had material for art but at what cost to the environment was all this plastic?  I decided to dedicate my collages to bringing awareness to the impact plastic is having on our oceans.

The first one I made, Sandbar I laid out on my Michigan living room in 1996.

Atoll is from 2006, when I lived in Seattle. It’s the same background vinyl with post- 4th of July fireworks detritus, bottle caps and beached security fencing from the Puget Sound. So much trash from Ebey’s Landing!

I collaborated with my partner photographer Dan Knowles, adding discarded children’s beach shovels to his water reflection study, making  Jetsam.

Susan Lockwood’s dying words were “I see a herd of turtles and I’m going to try and catch up”.