About 35 years ago, visitors to the Waukegan Municipal Beach saw nothing but sand and Lake Michigan beyond Seahorse Drive. Then, a movement began to let the area return to its natural state.
Lisa May, the city’s lakefront coordinator, said sand dunes that were once there began to sprout from a root system that remained beneath the sand, thus restoring the natural habitat. A conservation easement was also put in place to keep the dunes in perpetuity.
“It was Mother Nature taking back her territory,” May said. “Mother Nature does what she wants, and she always wins. As far as I know, the dunes were there when the lakefront was a heavily industrial area.”
Located a few hundred yards south of a decommissioned coal-burning electric-generating plant, Catherine Game, the executive director of the Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods, said she thinks the dunes will make an excellent theme for an exhibit this summer.
“This is real cool,” Game said. “This is a real opportunity to tell the story of the Waukegan Dunes through art. It’s pretty astounding. There are three coal ash ponds (nearby) and (the dunes) continue to thrive.”
Brushwood is currently seeking artists to submit work for its show, “In the Shadow of Coal — Botanical Treasures of the Waukegan Dunes,” which will run for seven weeks this summer in Riverwoods telling the story of hundreds of species growing there.
Game said artists can find a link on the Brushwood website that lists all the plant species around the dunes to help them decide what to craft into art and in which medium. It is open to all media.
Done in conjunction with the Driehaus Museum in Chicago, she said artists must craft their work and submit it for the juried show by June 8. The exhibit opens July 13 and closes Aug. 31. Selected artists will be able to sell their creations through the event.
Selected both for its botanical diversity and the environmental challenges of the area, hundreds of plant species grow from the sand in an area that was once a heavily industrial area whose factories left five Superfund sites, according to Brushwood’s call for artists.
“The fact that this scrap of nature has survived and thrived thanks to community engagement is significant, not just for its biodiversity, but also because of its location next to a recently closed coal plant, where remaining coal ash ponds continue to leach toxic pollutants,” the call for artists said.
Along with the art, the exhibit will show what proximity to the pollution has done to the area around the dunes as well as the dangers, not only the plants face but also the challenges to the surrounding community.
Before the harbor was built and factories were established in the 19th century, May said the dunes were likely there, though how they looked is unknown. The art from the exhibit will help tell the story of what is there now for future generations.
David Motley, the city’s public relations director, said when he worked at the beach as a lifeguard in his teens, the plants of the dunes were not there. The city kept it purely as a beach.
May said the root systems were so deep, that the plants had no problem sprouting through the sand and continuing to grow. She helped Heeyoung Kim, a botanical artist who heads Brushwood’s Botanical Art Academy, and her students identify many of the plants at the dunes last summer.
