I had the pleasure to meet Dr Geebers the pebble man on Skegness Beach on a cold, windy February day.
Dr Geebers (his artistic name) is a homeless man who is travelling around the UK on foot visiting beaches to bring coastal communities a peace of his pebble art sculputures.
The Pebble Man started his journey in 2009 in Brighton travelling up the west side of Britain, he reached Scotland in 2010 and in February 2011 made it to my home town on the East Coast of England. He’s travelled an amazing 4,800 miles to get to Skegness and has around 3,000 miles to walk to get back to Brighton where he started his artistic adventure.
His art work is a fine example of Recycled art and Dr Geebers story is truly inspirational.
I wish I had thought about building sculptures out of beach pebbles, if I had I might never have moved away from Brighton and come back to the East Coast since the reason we moved to Skegness was to get away from the Brighton pebble beaches, so our kids could build sand castles :)
I don’t think our children would have had the patience that Dr Geebers has to build his pebble sculptures, it takes the pebble man 2 – 3 weeks for each sculpture, I’m lucky to get my kids to sit still for three minutes.
As I said before Dr Geebers the pebble man is a homeless man and during his journey has had to endure temperatures of -16 degrees during the very cold 2010 winter. As you can imagine on an exposed beach where the cold is unforgiving most people would have trouble just picking up a stone, let alone spend weeks building recycled art sculptures!
On one of his YouTube videos Dr Geebers says “he doesn’t know if he will survive his trip around the UK on foot” it really brings it home how dangerous an epic journey he has under taken to bring his pebble art to UK seaside towns. We have had a bad winter in the UK in 2010, I couldn’t imagine being on a beach at night in plummeting temperatures, especially in Skegness where BRACING is a Skegness trademark!
His life changed course when he made a drunken bet with a friend on Brighton Beach that he could build a pebble sculpture.
He built a Yin and Yang pebble artwork on Brighton Beach as part of that bet, that took him 3-4 hours, when his friend came back he wasn’t just surprised that he had built a pebble sculpture in 3-4 hours, but that it was 5 foot across!
Dr Geebers is to be admired for trying to get back on his feet from the most difficult of situations and turn his life around for the better. He’s not claiming benefits, so survives on the generosity of those who appreciate his beach pebble sculptures. You can follow his adventures on Dr Geebers Facebook page and donate via PayPal at Dr. Geebers Pebble Art. After his epic journey around the UK coastline, he plans to rebuild his life.
Part of the reason Dr Geebers pebble man is bringing his pebbles art to the beaches of the UK is to give something back to the community for our soldiers who many of them end up on the street homeless after leaving the army and to let people know that not all homeless people are bad.
His sculptures are absolutely amazing, he’s built castles, boats, flowers, seagulls and on Skegness Beach he is building us us a Formula One Racing Car.
Dr Geebers would be a perfect addition to any artistic festival with an ample supply of pebbles. Skegness beach isn’t pebbly, yet he’s managed to collect thousands of pebbles to build his latest pebble sculpture. We’d love to see him back on our beach for the Skegness SO Art Festival sometime in the future (hint, hint SO Festival organisers :-)).
The Pebble Man is real talented artist and an interesting person, his passion and enthusiasm is contagious. If he visits your seaside town on his way back to Brighton, say hi and have a chat with him he has some great stories to tell.
You can follow Dr Geebers on his Facebook page, if he visits your town do look out for him and look after him while he’s there.
Dr Geebers The Pebble Man Rocks! :)
Great to see you are standing up and being counted. May you suceed in everything you do, and find your place in the world. All the best Diane
Saw your ‘Rock Bank’ sculpture on Brighton Beach this morning (27th November 2011) and thought it was great! Good luck and who knows, one day I might be able to say I met the famous Banksy of Pebbles while at the seaside!