A college lecturer who grew tired of seeing empty drinks cans littering his classroom has launched a surprise second career, turning waste into sought-after works of art.
Prints of Mark Haining’s colourful portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain, Debbie Harry and Dolly Parton are selling briskly, and the 43-year-old is now preparing for his first major exhibition.
Mark, from Alexandria in Dunbartonshire, became frustrated by the daily build-up of discarded cans left on desks and work benches at Ayr College, where he works as a horticulture lecturer technician. Instead of throwing them away, he began thinking about how the brightly coloured aluminium could be reused creatively.
Using strips of aluminium recovered from empty cans of Irn-Bru, Fanta, Coke and Sprite, he began building portraits of his favourite cultural icons.
“The best ideas are often created by necessity, and this is one of those occasions,” he said. “I never set out to do something creative with a bunch of old ginger cans. One minute I was moaning about the litter in my classroom and now I have built a whole new career out of it.
“I’m just taking each day as it comes, seeing what colours land on my workbench, and trying to enjoy the ride.”
The idea first took shape during lockdown, when Mark, who left school with Highers in Art and English, began experimenting at home with different materials. When the mess got too much for the kitchen table, his wife Laura encouraged him to move into the garden shed and turn it into a studio.
“Somebody gave me a big plywood board and I just started thinking, what about stapling, and I began to do that,” he said. “Then I saw Monster cans and Rockstar cans, and all these colourful things in the classroom, and I thought, that’s a waste of them going in the bins.”
What started as a creative experiment has since grown into a fully fledged art business, markyboyart.com. His habit of making art from things people leave behind has also earned him the nickname “Womble” among students.
Mark later approached the Scottish Design Exchange, which gives independent artists and makers a high street presence, and was offered a space in its Glasgow store. Prints of his work have become some of the best-selling items at the Sauchiehall Street branch, while he is also preparing to launch a debut exhibition of 10 original pieces at Burgh Yard in Helensburgh next month.
He said he now works with a wide range of brands depending on the colours he needs, and has expanded beyond portraiture into cartoon characters including Snoopy, Betty Boop and Kermit the Frog.
“I would like to go down that route because I don’t see anybody else doing it,” he said. “People keep saying to me they have never seen anything like it before, so I think I have hit on something truly original.”
His students have also taken notice of his unusual sideline. “They come in and say, ‘What did you do this weekend?’ So that’s what I do – I work six, seven days a week usually,” he said.
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Lynzi Leroy, chief executive of the Scottish Design Exchange, said Mark’s creativity and entrepreneurialism were exactly the sort of qualities the organisation was created to identify and support.
“He saw waste, saw possibility, and built an entirely original practice from sheer ingenuity and determination,” she said. “Mark’s work has found a dedicated audience, not just because it is visually stunning – it also tells a story of reinvention, resilience and authentic Scottish grit.”
