Awkward Anglers

Magnet fishing club!

£3 life time membership, includes bade and card

I am the DIRECTOR of the magnet fishing club ‘The Awkward Anglers’. Please get in touch for membership and magnet fishing tips or advice.

This club was started for a commission in Caernarfon harbour, North Wales. Using a strong magnet I fished for lost steel treasures in Caernarfon harbour.

I designed a logo, t-shirts and a facebook page where locals were invited to join the club and then help me fish. I performed in role for a week whilst on the research trip, leading fishing classes.

Every item pulled out was meticulously photographed and documented in my van, which was transformed in to a mobile lab. All the finds are then presented in a series of books.

I worked closely with the harbour trust who took me out on boats, and allowed me to work within the harbour to create the mobile van office . Here I could catalog objects and the public could borrow magnets and collect their own items.

These steel treasures were used to create rust prints on paper. The items we fished were placed on to white paper in tanks of sea water. This caused them to rust and created unique marks on the papers surface. These prints were then sealed within double glazing units to make them suitable for out door display, and set into steel frames.

Finds were also placed in tanks of sea water on copper leafed paper. The sea water reacted with the copper and steel creating amazing patination on its surface.

All the finds and documentation was shown in a gallery nearby and the final piece displayed in the castle next to where we fished. The shape of the final piece was inspired by, and mirrored, the architecture of Caernarfon castle in which they were placed.

Afterwards the steel collected was scrapped and the money presented back to the harbour trust.