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.

Inspiration

Creating

Fish project

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)

Trapped in the net

Schools jellyfish

Angler fish

View of the room

Fun fish

Our fish

View of the room

Mermaid

BAAMfest 2015 ( thanks to bob of studio southwest for this photo)

Mermaid winner

Globe

jellyfish and hang five

Katrina Slack Porpoise

Seahorse head by Karen Gimlinge

weird fish

School Kraken

BAAM team (photo by Bob of Studio Southwest.)

 

It’s Not Rubbish Art Show

Last weekend saw the first Bude Arts and Music Festival happen in Bude. Anna Worthington of BAAM approached Annie and I with the idea to create an arts and craft event.  For the past six months, we have thrashed through several ideas and plans which resulted in ‘The ITS Not Rubbish Art Show’ held over the two days and a contemporary craft market on the Sunday.  It involved a lot of planning, reworking of ideas and weekly meetings to get it all organised, but organise we did and pulled off a very successful event.

It wasn’t all just about us.. There was a huge marquee with kids theatre, entertainment and bands on two stages along with a skate competition and roller disco.  The crooklets beach area was transformed with colour, bunting, banners and over 1000 people. The cliff walk between Crooklets and Summerleaze was host to 50 large flags which could be seen from miles away.

It really was a community event for the people of Bude run by a small band of people and teenage volunteers who were amazing. It made you proud to be a part of it and it really said ‘Bude’ is open, come on down and join in the fun.

The Rubbish Show, came out of an idea of initially making stuff to decorate the festival. Annie and I are both keen beachcombers and this winter the sea threw tons of rubbish up onto our shoreline.  It was a great opportunity to highlight the issues of sea pollution and we got Widemouth Task Force and the #2minutebeachclean involved too to promote it with beachcleans and they judged the final show.

We made a sign that went on a tour of Bude to promote the event and held a swap shop. After a winter of beaches full of rubbish, by May they were incredibly clean, we think from the efforts of the beach cleaners.

Our plan was to make lots of unusual and large objects, but time and other commitments meant we had a couple of afternoons to make a few bits and then worked solidly two days beforehand to get Rosies play shed into an exhibition space whilst throwing everything we could find in the way of beach rubbish on the outside. It evolved over the two days with some helpers and by Saturday morning we were ready to roll.

The whole festival was a huge success, and our little show had 42 entries and we reckon around 700 visitors through the doors over the two days, which in a shed of around 6m x 4m was quite phenomenal. Here are some of the entries.

 

 

Fun in the Sand , Beach Sculptures

A laid back Sunday was planned. Lazy breakfast, maybe a swim and then singing with the choir at the Surf Club at 4pm.

But after a couple glasses of wine with friends the night before, Jane and I were inveigled into a beach sculpture event. Organised by Bude Arts and Music at Northcott Beach, the plan was to build Bude out of sand..or at least the best bits. We did get a bit overexcited and ambitious with our plans but decided to start with the breakwater and let it build out from there.

Up early, four of us grabbed everything we thought might be useful from watersprays, shovels, scrappers, brushes, pots and buckets and arrived at the beach.  We paid our £2 entry, and found a great spot to start excavations.

And I mean excavations.  Jane and I had brought cornish shovels which meant we could move large amounts of sand pretty quickly.  Once clad in stones, the breakwater was taking shape and we had a natural harbour as there was a stream and rockpool on one side.

Annie working on the seapool

Helen fashioning the Bude Light

The finished Bude!

Flagpole and #bigupbude

Trawler with Net coming in around the Barrel

Northcott Beach

Annie arrived after finishing cleaning her rooms.  She is one of Budes leading Bed and Breakfast Landladies and very particular with her rooms.  I think she was pretty impressed with what we had achieved, though I’m not sure  it fitted her vision.  It was after all her idea initially anyway.  But once she saw the general layout, she got very involved in building the seapool.  The only problem was keeping it full of water.  Sand likes to drain away and her plastic bag had a hole in it.

We only had two hours and always knew we would have to leave before the finish because of other committments, but the time flew!  Finishing touch was by Jane.. #bigupbude

We had a quick chat with Sarah, one of the organisers and admired the trophies she had made from driftwood and other beach material.  We had actually won, but couldn’t stay which meant we had to forfeit our prize, but  because there were no children on the team, really weren’t worried. It was after all just for fun, and fun was what we had.

After a quick cup of tea and a spruce up it was hot foot down to the Surf Life Saving Club at Bude to sing in the choir, as part of their 60th Anniversary celebrations.

What a inspired fun filled but really worthwhile day to spend with friends and play .. even if  3/4 of us are in our fifties.