Local artist Chis McClellan has found a new creative outlet over the past year, carving sculptures in the facade along the banks at Whitty’s Lagoon beach.
McClellan says it began around a year ago when he decided he would take the time to carve a fireplace in the sandstone-esque banks of Whitty’s Beach.
However, soon after he carved this initial piece, a king’s tide rolled in and washed away his work.
He did not let this erasure deter him from this project though and has since created six carvings—some of which are still in the works.
“So I did the fireplace first, just messing around, and then the king tide came and it swept away the wall—it all fell off and it was gone,” McClellan told Victoria Buzz.
“But, it opened up that whole huge wall so I put the fireplace back and then I was like, ‘oh, there’s another little spot over here,’ so I put the pharaoh sarcophagus there.”
After he redid the initial piece and added a second, he then went on to work on a prominent dinosaur skeleton, and has been slowly adding to the wall when he has the time.
“I don’t have a lot of time, so I only get to work on it maybe one day a week,” said McClellan.
“It’s been really fun though, I’ve just been getting so much response from people on the beach who are taking pictures.”
McClellan added that he wondered at first how long it would take for one of his pieces to come around on his own social media channels, and it only took around one month.
Since that first instance, he has been frequently seeing his creations online and hearing from tourists on Whitty’s Beach that they have been seeing them too and had to check them out for themselves.
“Every time I’m working there I end up meeting all kinds of people, and I found out [my art] made it all the way back to the McClellan castle in Scotland,” he said.
“I was like, ‘oh my god, that’s quite full circle.’”
The six sculptures McClellan has carved are: a fireplace, mantle and ship painting; a pharaoh’s sarcophagus with some made up hieroglyphs; a dinosaur skeleton; an in-the-works skeleton king that resembles the grim reaper; and his most recent in-the-works piece which is a nude Buddha near the nude beach at Whitty’s.
McClellan says all he hopes is for people to continue to come down to the beach to see his work and enjoy it.
Those who want to see more of his artwork can see it on his Instagram.
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