Tim Pugh, a 59-year-old environmental artist from Flintshire, North Wales, has dedicated his career to creating temporary sculptures from beach debris that disappear "like magic dust" when the tide rolls in. Using materials ranging from driftwood and pebbles to discarded toys and even old army parachutes, Pugh crafts intricate artworks designed to leave no permanent trace on the landscape.

The accomplished artist has earned international recognition for his ephemeral creations, claiming the Adult Artistic prize at the World Rock Stacking Championships in both 2019 and 2020. Most recently, he secured second place in the Adult Finalist category at the European Stone Stacking Championships, demonstrating his mastery of balancing natural materials in gravity-defying arrangements.

Pugh's artistic philosophy centers on the concept of impermanence and environmental responsibility. "I like the transience of it – I think that's the magical thing about it," he explained. "There's a lot of people making stone stacks now, and a lot of people say they despoil the landscape. It's not for me to antagonize people, but to show that my work really will fall down and totally disappear within a matter of days." His creations are specifically intended to "leave a light touch on the land," washing away without leaving any trace behind.

The artist's passion for land art began during his studies at Edinburgh College of Art, where lecturers recognized his environmental interests and began taking him to nearby beaches to observe "the impact of waves on clay and things like that." After graduation, Pugh returned to North Wales and committed himself fully to his artistic calling. "I'm one of those people who said, 'I'm going to be an artist and nothing else'. It's an all-consuming thing, this art," he stated.

During his early career struggles, Pugh found crucial support from his grandmother Beatrix, whom he describes as a "staunch ally" who encouraged him through the difficult initial years. "Apart from my gran, most of the family were against it as a way of life," he recalled. Through residencies, school workshops, and exhibitions, he has successfully built a sustainable career as a full-time artist and is now taught in primary schools as part of the Welsh art curriculum.

Pugh spends most of his time working on Whitehaven beach in Cumbria and various locations throughout North Wales, engaged in a continuous cycle of creating sculptures, photographing them, and allowing them to wash away. His materials vary dramatically depending on what the ocean delivers each day. "Often I find really poignant things like miners' tags," he noted. "When a miner went underground at the nearby mines, if they don't put the tag back when they finished working, you know they're still down there." He has also discovered pieces of old railway lines, children's toys, and even military parachutes washed ashore.

Among his most treasured creations are colorful flowers crafted from mussel shells, delicately balanced stone towers, and sea creatures fashioned from discarded plastic. One particularly striking artwork shows shells fanning out from a tidepool like a sun, while others feature pebbles, twisted metal chunks, and tires arranged in sculptures that appear to defy gravity. "It's great for making sculptures, and it's got lots of fossils and driftwood on it," he said of Whitehaven beach. "There's a family of ravens that come down and eat my sandwiches every time I go – they trust me now. It's like my studio."

The artist maintains strict environmental ethics in his work, carefully inspecting rocks to remove any snails that might be crushed and avoiding the use of living materials. Beyond beach work, he also creates art with fallen leaves in woodlands and snow in mountainous areas. He has expressed concern about what he calls a "worrying trend" of hikers removing stones from ancient walls, cairns, and hill forts to build stone stacks, emphasizing the importance of "leaving a light touch on the land."

Pugh has developed a complex relationship with the plastic debris that frequently appears in his work. While often "seduced by the vivid colors," he simultaneously despairs about the scale of plastic pollution. In one powerful sculpture, multicolored plastic fragments become smoke billowing from an industrial tower, while another depicts a sea turtle – a species heavily impacted by ocean plastic pollution. He regularly collects plastic from beaches to use in educational programs with schoolchildren about pollution.

The artist's dedication to his craft has not been without physical challenges. Five years ago, while exploring a beach, Pugh slipped on seaweed-covered boulders and broke his arm in two places. "I had to climb this cliff with one arm and all my camera equipment, because the sea was coming in and it had cut me off," he recounted. Remarkably, just three months later in 2019, he was crowned world champion in adult artistic stone stacking at the Llano Earth Art Festival in Texas, a title he successfully defended the following year.

Looking ahead, Pugh will return to Texas next March following his recent success at the European Stone Stacking Championships in Dunbar, Scotland. He speaks enthusiastically about these events' accessibility to people of all ages and abilities. "It's good for children that think they're not good at art, because they can just have a go and there are no wrongs or rights," he observed. "There's nearly always a gang of lads that are a bit cheeky in class, and you put them on the beach – you have to drag them away in the end."

For aspiring land artists, Pugh offers simple but encouraging advice: "Just have a go at a simple shape in your back yard or on a local beach." He concluded with a Welsh phrase that encapsulates his philosophy: "As we say in Wales, 'tisio go': give it a go!" His work continues to demonstrate that art can be both environmentally conscious and profoundly moving, proving that the most powerful creations sometimes exist only in the moment before they return to nature.