DAY 1

22nd July 2025

Caswell Bay, Gower

DYDD 1

22nd Gorffennaf 2025

Bae Cas-welt, Gwyr

GWYL CERFLUNIAU TRAETH GWYR 2025

Scroll down to view the 2025 festival feature and link to the next festival day at the bottom of each page

Artists /Artistiaid:

SARA HOLDEN,

TINA MARIE CUNNINGHAM,

JENNY CHISHOLM

Photographer / Ffotograffydd Prosiect: Phil Holden

The first day of the 21st annual Beach Sculpture Festival began at Caswell, a large sandy beach on Gower. Caswell Bay or Bae Cas-wellt, a Blue Flag beach, is popular with families, holiday makers and surfers alike. Festival displays and flags were positioned on the golden sandy shore as people began to arrive at the beach eager to make some exciting sculptures with the artists. The beach was soon buzzing with lots of eager young artists wanting to create their favourite marine animals from sand, shells and pebbles. The Gower coastline is a great place to spot local sealife such as seals, starfish, harbour porposies /dolphins and rock pool creatures so there was plenty of marine life to inspire the beach sculptures at Caswell. The feature on our festival pages shows just some of the wonderful sculptures that were made to adorn each beach in our annual festival tour by people of all ages who came to share our creative event. They loved the spirit of the whole festival which aims to couple art and nature. The sculptures were made with imagination, ingenuity,resourcefulness, curiosity, enormous fun and lots of artistic flair. The photos here and comments from participants and the artists tell the story of their experiences at the festival and their thoughts on nature and art.

The Festival created curiosity.

Great fun!

I loved making the octopus sculpture - it was super cool!

It was an opportunity for my daughter to express herself - she loved the outcome. A very worthwhile event - my daughter now wants to go to all these festival days!

Environmental art events like this are definitely worthwhile to show people what animals are in the sea and learn how to create sculptures.

The artist introduced us to lots of natural materials around us that we could use for our sculpture

A seal popping out of the sand was great fun to make with these three youngsters.

Super fun experience. Kept the kids entertained and the seal looked amazing. Lovely artist team.

The workshop was an excellent use of observation to improve our creativity. We found out lots of environmental aspects while at the festival too!

It was great fun - thank you!

The Festival gives all children an opportunity to access different resources.

We found out about different marine life and the event combined creativity with being outdoors - and it's free!

The festival is great for involving children and adults together for a good cause.

Participants worked in family groups responding to each others narratives and goals. They liked having a choice of creatures to build with different sculpting techniques.

Excellent fun!

We found out about different endangered marine life while making our sculptures which were really fun to make!

We love this activity each year at the festival!

The artists gave us lots of ideas for creativity and how to appreciate nature!

We absolutely loved the festival - it was a great way for us all to learn about nature and gain an appreciation of it!

THANK YOU TO OUR KIND SPONSORS BELOW:
Diolch i bawb am wneud ein gwyl cerflunwaith flynyddol mor llwyddiant unwaith eto.

DIOLCH I'N EIN HYRWYDDION SY'N GWYBODAETH BOD:

We made a seahorse which we were very happy with. Our creativity was enhanced through the workshop. The artist gave us lots of ideas to use the available resources on the beach.

'So inspiring'

We made a turtle and loved doing the textures especially. We learnt about art and sealife whilst at the festival

Lovely, imaginative experience for the children. Thank you!

The artist led engagement with my son was very precious!

The festival was a wonderful way to relax and connect with nature! A great idea!

Sculpting on the beach promotes conversation about marine and shoreline biodiversity - participants shared their knowledge and gained further knowledge through open conversations with the artists.

At the end of the day the beach was adorned with so many beautiful, interesting and thought provoking sculptures such as seahorses, sting rays and skates, turtles, sand lizards, fishes, star fishes and dolphins to name a few! The festival had increased people's confidence to make art on the beach and given them a deeper connection to the location and the wild creatures living around it in the marine environment. It was amazing to see how everyone responded to the Festival with enthusiasm, both children and adults alike. There was a beautiful array of sand sculptures on the beach at the end of the day for an evening audience!

The first day of the festival was a brilliant success and the artists folded away the flags and banners ready to take to Oxwich Bay the next day.

To see page 2 of 2025 Festival at Oxwich Bay - click the link at the bottom of this page.
I weld tudalen 2 o 2025 Gwyl Traeth Bae Oxwich - cliciwch ar y ddolen ar waelod y dudalen hon