Book Review: Washed Ashore: Making Art from Ocean Plastic (children and adults, art or trash)(OT)

Washed Ashore: Making Art from Ocean Plastic, by Kelly Crull (Millbrook Press, 2022, 36 pp, $19.99, grades 1-4,  ages 6-10 and above) Watch the full-length documentary here. (Review by Skye Anderson)

Art to Save the Sea

Is it true that one man's garbage is another man's treasure? If so, this book is living proof that plastics pollution can be transformed into teachable art.

Credit: S. Anderson

From Yuck to Love

Picking up trash is not much fun but what if we could make it fun and also turn it into something beautiful? What if we could use the plastic trash to make giant traveling sculptures that also teach environmental conservation and marine ecology, mixing art and science?

Artist Angela Haseltine Pozzi has done just that, crafting more than 85 remarkable works of art beginning over ten  years ago - and photographer-author Kelly Crull has created a coffee table book about her amazing projects from debris -  for children and their families.

We discovered Washed Ashore on a recent trip to the Chautauqua Institution (New York State)

Credit: S. Anderson

which is hosting 14 of the larger-than-life-sized* sculptures until the end of October this year as part of an international exhibition (you can see others at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC).

The Book Itself is a Work of Art

Although touted as a children's book, we beg to differ. Washed Ashore is also a book for the classroom and the entire family with 13 two-page spreads about sea creatures affected by plastics pollution, plus what you can do to ameliorate the situation - and each animal has a list of plastic items to search for in the sculpture. The astute eye will identify even more  common everyday objects!

Also included are a glossary, a list of books and websites, how to plan a scavenger hunt for plastic items at the seashore, a flowchart tracing the life cycle of a plastic bottle with choices to lessen its impact, and how to make your own trash sculpture.

With the help of more than 10,000 people over the years, Pozzi spends six to eight months on a project, from collecting and sorting plastic trash into colors, researching the sea creatures most affected by our pollution, building the animal frame and finally attaching the plastic items in just the right locations to transform the 'animal' into a work of educational art.

Inspiring Recycling!

* for size comparison: