PORT LUDLOW — Michael Berman is turning trash into art — with a message.
He learned through the camera’s lens that roadside litter is an eyesore and a silent toxic killer, menacing the watery ecosystem that meanders through many parts of the North Olympic Peninsula, drifting to the sea.
His experience as a roadside trash spotter and picker has evolved into an April 22 Earth Day art project that he hopes to be able to erect on Oak Bay Road between state Highway 19 and the Port Ludlow Village commercial district.
A fine art and marine assignment photographer for 25 years, Berman said that in late January he picked up 729 pieces of litter on that road.
He carefully identified and recorded each piece. He found everything from plastic bags and Styrofoam food containers to water, beer and energy drink cans and bottles.
He said he found a piece every eight feet, and that 60 percent of the trash was recyclable cans and bottles.
“Why do people throw their cans, bottles and fast-food packaging out of their cars onto the side of the road?” he pondered, saying at least it is a problem he can deal with by picking up after others.
Before picking it up, he photographed every piece as it lay in the decaying leaves, rotting branches, sword ferns, moss and grass.
He said that some of the trash was gradually working its way toward Port Ludlow Creek, which tumbles over scenic falls and flows into Port Ludlow Bay.
‘Trash walk’
Seeing his “trash walk” as a project with a greater cause, Berman is creating a temporary Earth Day roadside gallery of his enlarged prints of trash photos.
He wants to place them strategically along the same stretch of Oak Bay Road he voluntarily cleaned up — if county regulations will permit it.
The project harkens back to the works of artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who blended art with the natural world.
“It really shows the significance of it,” Berman said in his home studio, talking about his project mock-up that shows his trash art close-ups placed on both sides of Oak Bay Road.
Berman, who five years ago moved with his wife, Jan, from New Jersey to a home overlooking a pond in a wooded area on Larson Lake Road in Beaver Valley, said he habitually spies road trash and constantly has the urge to pick it up, even if he can’t.
“I hate looking at other people’s trash, but more importantly, it is harmful to our oceans and streams,” he said.
“Plastic bottles never completely break down. They break apart, moving through the watershed as smaller and smaller bits, poisoning marine life and floating out to sea, washing up on distant beaches and eventually swirling about in mid-ocean garbage islands.”
Berman should know.
For years he has photographed the great tall ships of the Northwest sailing at sea — among them the Lady Washington and Lynx — framing the dramatic black-and-white prints for exhibition and to sell as commemorative posters.
His works are exhibited in Port Townsend at Northwind Gallery, in the Strait Art exhibit at Port Angeles Fine Arts Center and in Bremerton at Collective Visions Art Gallery, where he took the top photography prize in a recent exhibit and won $1,000.
Other options
If he can’t get his project past county sign regulations, he is entertaining other options, such as on property closer to Port Ludlow Village.
Even the pristine acreage where he lives is haunted by trash originating from the nearby road.
He said he occasionally spies a can floating down the spring that winds around his house and studio.
He finds some levity in the trash.
The weirdest drink containers he found: Budweiser Clamato.
“I’m guessing that all four cans came from the same person,” he said with a chuckle.
He encourages other regional artists to get involved in his outdoor exhibit and to pick up trash when they see it to improve the area’s natural beauty.
“Each and every person can make a difference,” said Berman, who can be contacted at 360-732-0693 or mjbeman55@embarqmail.com.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
