If you’re a Torquay tradie and see a scruffy fellow scoping the on-site skip bin, you can relax, chances are it’s only Corey Graham.

Over the last year or so, Corey, who shapes under his own label, Corey Graham Shapes, has been scouting building sites and industrial areas, eyes peeled for discarded pieces of foam.

The material that’s at the veritable heart of our pastime is incidental to the building industry, sometimes used as formwork or insulation, often just mere packaging. The foam is bulky and hard to dispose of so, when Corey asks if he can take it off their hands, the builders are always happy to oblige.

Scavenging is the first step in Corey’s new project, though ‘scavenging’ makes the whole enterprise sound tawdry.

Corey calls it the Found Foam project; he also calls it manna from heaven.

Corey with a selection of boards from his Found Foam project: surfboards, bodyboards, and even kick boards

Corey takes the rejected pieces of foam back to his factory then, like a sculptor locating the art within a block of marble, finds new forms within the foam: new surfboards, bodyboards, kick boards, whatever the shape will allow.

The idea for Found Foam stretches back at least ten years. “I recall stripping back old boards, or snapped boards,” says Corey, “and seeing all that white foam that was going to waste.”

“I lose sleep over how wasteful the industry can be,” says Corey, surely echoing the thoughts - insomnia notwithstanding - of everyone who’s surfed for a length of time. We chew them up and spit them out.

Yet the Found Foam project is not just a way for Corey to assuage his conscience. “Most times I’m shaping,” says Corey, “I’m hitting numbers, filling volume, and that’s great, it’s my work, but I’ve found that with these boards I can really release my creativity.”

A block of wall insulation foam found on a building site that Corey turned into a 5'8" x 19'3/8" x 2" shooter

He may be releasing his creativity yet he ironically also has to contain it. “I’ve got no control over what I find,” says Corey, “what size the foam will be, what condition it’ll be in. So I have to work within those parameters.”

“Some pieces I can let my creativity run wild, but others,” explains Corey, “are like a riddle that I have to solve.”

This includes, not just the shape of the foam but the state it’s in. “Some foam is softer,” says Corey, “so I’ll have to strengthen it when it gets glassed.”

Yeah, that’s right, Corey’s going to finish all the pieces of found foam so they’re glassed similar to any other board. The bodyboards are obviously finless but the surfboards will have fins that fit the theme.

By coincidence, a mate of his, Morgan Bridgeford, started a a similar type of project. Morgs walks the Winkipop shelf at low tide, head down, scouting for fins that have been lost to the rocks. He’s gathered an impressive collection, so some of the found foam boards will have also found fins.

Other boards will have fins that Corey has made himself. You see, when he’s not casing building sites, Corey collects old crates from Bunnings and converts the waste wood into fins. He’s even replicating an old nineties trick of hollowing out fins and replacing them with lighter material to cut down weight - in this instance the replacement material is EPS foam, which he’d found of course.

At left, a particularly good haul by Morgan, while centre and right are two examples of hand-made fins sourced from wooden crates

Word of Corey’s interest has got around the greater Torquay area and he’s receiving the odd tip-off. “I was contacted by someone building an industrial-size refrigerator," says Corey, “and they were discarding huge blocks of foam. It was going straight to landfill otherwise.”

He’s also rescued pieces from waterways; blocks of EPS foam destined to break into a million little pieces while floating towards the ocean. Yet the majority of the found foam is from building sites.

“I always ask if I can take something,” says Corey of his method. “I tell them what I’m doing and they often can’t get rid of it fast enough.”

“One piece the guy, the home-owner on a building site, was so thankful, he said he’d been trying to get rid of it for fifteen-fucking-years!”

“When that board’s finished I might take it back and show the guy - maybe even give it to him.”

He’s had offers on some of the boards but before selling any Corey and Morgs plan to exhibit them. “I’ve got about fifteen boards finished,“ says Corey, “and I’ll probably do another fifteen more. They’ve got to be coloured and laminated, and then we’ll show them.”

A block of EPS foam found next to a dumpster in a building site shaped into a futura bodyboard displaying Corey's beloved bevels and ridges

It’s not just art, however, as ever since he began scouting for waste foam, Corey’s been thinking of ways to have the two industries meet. Meaning the building industry and its waste, and the surf industry and its requisite material. But so far he’s yet to find a solution. The materials are the same but the needs are too different, and then there’s the individual attention each piece of foam requires. 

If you get the sense that Corey is feeling inspired by his latest project then you’re right on the money. Unfortunately, that’s not something he’s making. “No, it’s costing me money” laughs Corey. 

That may be so but the Found Foam project is also both therapy and outlet for Corey’s creative mind.

// STU NETTLE

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