The 'It's Not Rubbish Art Show' 2

From initial meetings and planning in January, BaamFest 2015 in June was always going to be bigger and better. We had a new location,booked a big top marquee, some great music acts and a comedy night with Kernow King.

The ‘It’s Not Rubbish Art Show 2’ also has a new venue within the Bude Castle and Heritage Centre, a small side gallery that was to become our underwater aquatic display of Creatures of the Deep,all made by the community.Everything was made from beach finds in the local area over the last winter.

The irony of it all is that it was beautiful and colourful, yet so harmful when it’s in the water.

The idea was simple. Annie Creo and I at the helm, we spent the winter beach combing, gathering ideas and from May, it was full steam ahead to make it all happen from promotion, designing the room display, to getting judges, prizes, forms and arranging the entries. We even had a mention on BBC springwatch and my instagram picture made an appearance.

The idea is to spread the message of cleaning the beaches and the problem of marine litter, whilst celebrating local peoples creativity in turning beach rubbish into ART.

We did a workshop with two classes at the local junior school in April and this provided some momentum for other classes, children and adults to partake and lobbied friends to have a go, providing cake and materials in the garden one sunny morning. We went to local beach cleans with Widemouth Task Force and #2minutebeachclean and organised a very unsuccessful swap shop, but the idea was fun and it was good promotion. Katrina Slack, an artist from Penzance also contributed a large porpoise piece she has made with the WWF.

A large ‘cod end’ net still with it’s plastic rings and colourful rope became our personal project; to be a centre piece of a large fish outside the gallery. Still unnamed she is beautiful with a wellie boot fin, frilly eye lashes, lighters for teeth, an inner tube for a mouth and she was filled with rope and other ghost gear which spills out of her mouth into a weaving littered with other items, all found on local beaches.

I also made a large sphere from fishing string over an inflated beach ball which when removed left me with a lovely light see through sphere which resembled the world. It’s addictive, working with this beach rubbish and I stayed up until 1 am one morning making small plastic fish to put around the outside of my fishing string world.

The day arrived, the show opened and we had over 600 visitors in the first day. Annie cleverly devised a walk around the room to guide people, which meant they didn’t miss a thing. The show was judged by Widemouth Task Force and #2minutebeachclean with extra prizes for the winners of the ‘peoples vote’.

Local artist Karen Gimlinge also made a lovely large seahorse to display and ran a very successful childrens workshop creating a large seascape with our left over rubbish.

On for two weeks, we hope many more will see it and more importantly go away more aware of beach rubbish, pick it up and spread the word.

(thanks to Bob Willingham for the festival pics)