About the Artist

Curb Beach Plastic Art is made by Capetonian Environmental Artivist, Janet Ormond.

Janet grew up in Hout Bay, South Africa and now lives close-by in the small coastal town of Kommetjie with her husband and two sons.

Having grown up either on the ocean sailing with her family as a young child in Brazil or on one of Cape Town's beautiful beaches, Janet has a real love for the sea.

Janet studied art at the College of Cape Town. After School she worked in boat based tourism for 10 years, has run her successful craft business since then as well as establishing herself as an environmental artivist.

With her love of the ocean and her artistic background it is not surprising that she evolved to create environmental art focusing on using beach plastic to make her pieces. 

All Janet's work is made entirely from plastic which she collects off the beaches of Southern Africa. She takes inspiration from her passion to raise awareness about the impact we have on our environment, the devastating ecological disaster that the ocean is facing due to plastic pollution and at the same time is inspired by nature and her surroundings. 

The variety of plastic collected during her beach clean-ups are endless.

Here are some of the items most commonly found.

micro plastics
polystyrene
nurdles
ear buds
lollipops sticks
straws
bottle caps and seals
bottles
plastic bags
fishing line

Fishing net
rope
plastic components

So much is unidentifiable, she often wonders where the pieces have come from.

The process to make her art is extremely time consuming. Janet tirelessly cleans the beaches surrounding her on the Cape Peninsula. The plastic is taken home, sorted from the rubbish and washes it with her collected rainwater. She then sorts all the cleaned plastic and is able to start creating in her home studio.

She hopes her art can make people reflect on their past, present and future choices and make a change in their own lives to help the global problem we all contribute to.

in the words of C.S Lewis....
“ You cant’ go back and change the beginning,
but you can start where you are and change the ending”