I am parked up in my post office van which is transformed from litter collection & sorting space to my mobile project ‘Office’, were I sit whenever I can grab a several hours to write up my littoral notes taken during my residency on Isle Martin mapping the litter washed up .

May 2014: collection & sorting                                     August 2014:  writing & planning

It’s a strange feeling to be writing about beaches on the  North West coast, while sat in my office surrounded by forests  hundreds of miles south and about as far from the sea as I can possibly be. My location , like most people, is determined by where I am contracted to work, for me that means designing and facilitating paid art projects and at the moment that’s in the borders and Midlothian. But my many notebooks and photographs always travel with me and I am determined to try and write an article that documents my findings so far and what is being done by thousands of individual people to improve the situation we find on our shorelines.

As I reconnect with my statistics of litter found on Isle martin’s back beach I am transported back to the west coast, the feeling of awe at the beauty of the place, sadness and disgust at what I am now after a year tracking the litter on such beaches used to seeing. Browsing through hundreds of images capturing heaps of rope and plastic objects  my passion and desire to creatively show what’s to a greater or lesser extent on every beach around Scotland, the UK and across the globe  is quickly ignited and I begin to write…. If anyone has any contacts in papers /publications in Scotland or UK, that they think might be interested in the ‘Littoral Story’  please leave a message below.

My immediate intention is to return to Ullapool with a visual presentation of the ‘Littoral Story- the pictures so far’. The presentation will be shown at the Ullapool Museum to coincide with the  last few weeks of my  ‘Future Fossil Collection’ installation there.  I will show images documenting all the events that have taken place over the last year on the beaches around Ullapool and on Isle Martin and I will be shedding light on the back stories behind the ‘fossils’, tracking oranges, CSI teams on Ullapool beaches, and skiff teams towing hundreds of metres of litter across Loch Kinnaird on World Environment Day. Dates for the showing will be announced shortly.