Iowa Girl on the Go

Moms get in free at Reiman Gardens on Mother’s Day, so today was a nice opportunity to go to the gardens with my family and see the new exhibition, Washed Ashore.

The sculpture exhibit opened April 29 and features 10 sculptures made from trash collected from beaches to make a statement about the amount of plastic garbage in our oceans and waterways.

All the plastic was collected by volunteers. Sculptures were each directed by a lead artist and then created through a collaboration of the artist, team members, and volunteers. (That’s Rufus the Triggerfish, above.)

Kids were having a blast finding specific items in the sculptures — water bottles, flip-flops, nylon rope, and the like — in a sort of scavenger hunt. I’ll bet they were learning something about water pollution while they played the game. The great white shark, below is 12 feet long and 6 feet tall.

Here are some facts about the Washed Ashore project:

• 90% of marine debris is petroleum based
• 38,000+ pounds of marine debris has been processed
• 10,000+ volunteers have participated
• 95% of all the debris collected by volunteers is actually used in the artwork
• 300+ miles of beaches have been cleaned to create a total of 60 sculptures