Children Clean Beaches, Weave Trash into Art

Children at the Ashley Bryan School cleaned the beaches on Little Cranberry Island, off Mount Desert Island in Maine, and created a weaving, making art from trash.

The EarthLoom at the Ashley Bryan School is home to a new beach cleanup weaving. Children and residents cleaned up the beaches around the island, and wove the materials into an attractive weaving.

A closer view shows the different kinds of materials found on the beaches and woven in, from sponges to netting, float rope to containers and mysterious items we can't identify.

There's rope, and a rubber glove, and a crab shell, and something that looks like honeycomb, plus evergreen branches, rusted wire, an asphalt shingle, and other "stuff", with a crab shell as an accent.

We see trap yarn, bait netting, paper, a straw mat, fir cones and twigs, and lichen or "old man's beard" which grows on tree branches.

A back view of the weaving shows at least three bottles found on the beaches. The cleanup weaving was an inspiration to the students to remember what littering looks like.