Create eye-catching beach art
Using man-made and natural materials found outdoors, environmental artist Tim Pugh creates beautiful, transient and poignant works that give viewers pause for thought
For artist Tim Pugh, the great outdoors is his studio, his gallery and his muse. The debris deposited by man and the natural world in the landscape are his materials. “Art doesn’t have to be created in a studio,” he says.
It could be pebbles and flotsam on a beach, leaves and twigs in a wood, plastic bottle tops on a riverbank or snow in the mountains. With these resources, Tim makes fleeting artworks that may shock, provoke, entertain or inform. “Some are funny and humorous, others are more poignant and political,” he says.
Anyone who chances upon Tim’s art while walking through a wood or by the sea may encounter a mosaic of washed-up fragments of glass and pottery, snowballs spilling from a tree trunk, pebbles filling a seaweed-covered shopping trolley, mussel shells arranged as flowers, bottle tops decorating an old mooring bollard on a quayside, a rock on a beach painted to look like a half-buried treasure chest, or a
satchel with the currents of the Irish Sea that carried it to a beach depicted on it.
“My role isn’t just to make art but to engage people with their surroundings,” says Tim. “To make people respond and to make them aware of the possibilities to create with what’s lying around. I keep the aesthetic beauty but I insert a layer of questioning, a narrative that also explores environmental concerns rather than just making a pretty spiral.”
Living in Mancot in south-east Flintshire, Tim is within striking distance of Snowdonia, the River Dee estuary and the North Wales coastline. He also often travels to his favourite places in Cumbria, such as Ennerdale and the beaches around Whitehaven. He talks eloquently about the endless possibilities of the things he sees around him that galvanise him into action and bring a spontaneity to his pieces. For instance, on a residency in Montana four years ago, Tim began to realise the potential of snow. He now goes to locations in the Lake District during the winter months to craft breathtaking ephemeral sculptures. “There are so many things you can do with snow – it is so fleeting and so beautiful.”
He also decorates and embosses tree trunks with images of crinkled leaves or mosaics of robins in leaves and twigs, and paints and sketches on pebbles. “It’s nice to draw on trees,” says Tim. “They’re like paper – it’s easy to rub out mistakes with charcoal and chalk. Bark is a natural canvas. Pebbles are my favourite at the moment though. They have such beautiful marks on them.”
ABUNDANT MATERIALS
Tim studied at Wrexham College of Art followed by Edinburgh College of Art. He graduated with a degree in ceramics in 1989 but chose not to go down the creative craft route and instead went into environmental art, as he enjoyed the beautiful colours and textures of the natural world. “I found I had free resources,” he says.
Inspired by landscapes, history, geology and archaeology, Tim’s work originally focused on nature’s leftovers but in the last decade he has turned to using man-made detritus.
At first it was the Victorian and Edwardian rubbish washed up on beaches, especially at Whitehaven in Cumbria, where people would dump their household waste into the sea. “I’d find pipes, pottery, medals, cutlery and codd balls [the small, often spherical glass stops used in old-fashioned drinks bottles]. It gives a
“My role isn’t just to make art but to engage people with their surroundings”
snapshot of domestic life up until the 1920s,” he says. But then it was plastic. “I began to notice a lot more plastic being washed up on the River Dee, so I started to react and make pieces to show the environmental degradation.”
Tim uses the rubbish (bottle tops, pens, clothes pegs, asthma inhalers, lighters and toy soldiers) he finds at his favourite beauty spots to draw attention to the extent of pollution and its impact on our seas, beaches, riverbanks and wildlife – fish in particular. In the process of foraging for these materials, he is also cleaning up these areas, as he takes the plastic he finds home, but not before he has used it to make statements.
OUT OF PLACE
“Plastic on a beach looks really out of context,” he says. “Piled on a rock, it looks like a creature and can be quite disturbing. By piling it up, I put a focus – a microscope – on it. It’s more shocking. You don’t notice how much plastic there is when it’s scattered along the tideline. Look beneath your feet, look around, and it’s all there. I make subtle messages. I feel it’s my responsibility to highlight it. I don’t want to preach but not enough is being done. No one understands the scale. It continues for 10 miles up the Cumbrian coastline – and that’s just what you see on the beach, not in the water.”
Not only does Tim inspire those who happen upon his pieces but he also takes his works into schools and rural communities. He uses the materials he finds beachcombing to teach children how to create environmentally aware murals as well as pebble and tree decorations using charcoal and natural pigments.
“I want to teach people about the damage of pollution as well as art,” he says. “Children are more aware of pollution than my generation. They’re the ones nagging their parents.”
For anyone interested in creating similar works, Tim’s advice is to start scavenging. “Go to beaches after storms and see what gets washed up. You don’t know what you’ll find. Look around you; the more you look, the more you’ll see.”
Tim is an example to us all. He clearly cares for our planet and wants to leave as light a footprint as possible. He cycles and takes trains everywhere and, by recycling the resources in his surroundings, he is creating minimal waste with his craft while spreading powerful messages. So next time you’re out in the countryside, make an effort to look around you. Observe the leaves and the pebbles and the litter. You may find yourself compelled to create something with them, too.