Beach Trash To Artit's a long process

The first step in the process of creating art from beach trash involves walking the beach and picking up trash. Mylar balloons are frequent finds that can be deadly to ocean life, so removing them from the beach is an easy but important action.

During every beach cleanup, we pick up plastic bags and wrappings ranging from small scraps to large sheets.

I'm repurposing found mylar balloons and plastic bags to create textured backgrounds on some of my beach trash art pieces.

Some days we find multiples of the same type of "lost" trash.

Occasionally we find a treasure like this piece of cobalt blue beach glass...

...and sometimes we find this from an irresponsible dog owner.

One day we came across this icon, destined for bigger things! :)

This cleanup provided its own bucket.

During a typical beach cleanup at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, we walk a few miles over a few hours removing an average of 8.3 pounds of trash. At times we carry out loads ranging from 25 to 40 pounds. Most is discarded, some is recycled, and some is saved for beach trash art.

Back home, I hose off saved beach trash and place it in a bucket with a sanitizing bleach solution.

I scrub each piece of beach trash individually...tedious work.

I rinse the scrubbed pieces again and set them out to air-dry.

Pictured here are natural finds and some of the first pieces of beach trash deemed special enough to save for use in my artwork.

I paired the comb in the previous slide with the purple brush pictured here in a piece titled Accidental Brush With a Beachcomber. The fishing line was incorporated to resemble a tangled mess of hair.

One beach cleanup yielded quite a haul of old bottles that we cleaned and recycled.

I store cleaned beach trash in bins to sort through later when looking for items to fit a particular theme.

I create my beach trash art works on wood panels of varying size.

(Left) Painting beach trash items (Right) Playing around with ideas and layouts

I used mylar balloons and assorted plastic bags to create this textured background. It was a challenge finding adhesives and paints that work with the various plastics and other trash items as there's no “one size fits all.”

I manipulated plastic bags with a heat gun and attached them to the wood panel with hot melt glue formulated for gluing plastics.

Plastic scraps are shown in their "as found" colors on the left. I decided on a different color theme and painted them black and white. The piece remains unfinished, however, as I look for specific items to complete it.

My approach is rarely intuitive. I tend to meticulously map out my designs as illustrated in this photo. Would you use a T-Square to work with beach trash?

I found a nylon plastic bag with the look and woven texture of burlap, perhaps a sandbag. I “saw” a section resembling a wave, and this concept progressed to an artwork titled Wave Goodbye.

I created the background for this artwork by gluing several large mylar balloons onto a 12x16 art panel. Then I used a heat gun to further the texturing process and painted it back and blue.

The artwork progresses as I arrange and rearrange pieces of beach trash, swapping some in and others out until I’m satisfied with the layout. I often find myself repositioning items yet again before finally gluing or wiring them in place.

It took several months for me to complete this piece titled Barbie Got Trashed. The work includes a wide array of found trash, from toys to fishing gear, and conveys Barbie's plea, "PLEASE DON'T TRASH OUR BEACHES."

Barbie Got Trashed (lower left) in The Frank Stick Memorial Art Show 2023 in Manteo NC.