A few years ago I had the luxury of spending the month of December in the quiet beach town of Emerald Isle on the North Carolina coast. To my surprise, the winter storms tossed an unimaginable amount of trash on the beach in front of my rented oceanfront duplex. I started collecting debris on my morning walks (we all want clean beaches, right?), and after a few days I realized there was a photo story there waiting to be told! So after 30 days of filling IKEA bags with found objects, I hatched my plan. On my last day at the shore I would curate my shoot on the beach. But that day came and yet another winter storm was brewing leaving it too windy and rainy to stage a photo shoot. So instead I moved everything, and I mean everything including sand and debris and tires, to my brothers driveway about a mile inland. You should’ve seen his reaction...He had no idea what to make of my nutty idea but soon got on board with sorting trash to help me.
You can interpret these as fun art or you can see it as a reminder of how much garbage ends up in our oceans. It was sad and gross, but also funny and curious thinking about where all these things came from. Who threw that tire in the ocean? How sad was the little girl when she lost her goggles? Why bring a giraffe to the beach? What kind of beverage did that piece of green sea glass once hold? Trash or treasure, I’ll let you decide!
P.S. I recently received a text message from my brother showing a photo of the giraffe, which suspiciously got left behind in his garage years ago. It's found its new forever home.
