Painting her way to a cleaner environment
From whales breaching to manta rays swimming in the deep blue sea, and according to Karen, the latest will showcase children from all walks of life playing on the beach - further promoting a unified South Africa.
PENNINGTON residents have been left guessing who the mystery artist is behind the several ocean themed waste bins that have popped up in the area. Well, now the guessing is over.
Pennington local artist, Karen Verleur was approached by the Pennington Conservancy not that long ago and requested to add some colour to the waste bins around Pennington beach. Initially, the idea was to paint a simple message ‘respect our beach’ onto the bins but that wasn’t what Karen had in mind.
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In fact, she felt that the message would not have had the desired reaction and impact and after all, what better way is there than inspiring people to do their part of protecting wildlife and nature alike than through art and love. ‘Love our beach’ was the message Karen chose to go with which is clearly represented in the paintings on each household waste bin.
From whales breaching to manta rays swimming in the deep blue sea, and according to Karen, the latest will showcase children from all walks of life playing on the beach – further promoting a unified South Africa. Pennington Conservancy provided Karen with a total of seven bins and opted to pay her for the cost of the materials needed to create the art pieces. To date, Karen has completed work on six of the bins and has started on the final piece this week.
Karen only picked up painting as a hobby some six years ago and has enjoyed painting ever since. “Painting gives life to things. This is our beach and we need to be proud of it,” she said.
“The beach belongs to everyone and everyone needs to do their part in helping to keep it clean.”
Pennington Conservancy’s recycling team would also like to thank Karen, who they say has outdone herself with her own creative designs, something they had not expected at all. They would also like to thank the conservancy as well as the Umdoni municipality for their support and sponsorship of this initiative aimed at reducing the negative impact of household waste on the environment as well as ocean and wildlife.
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CAP: Pennington local Karen Verleur with one of her latest waste bin designs.
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