For the benefit auction Art Houses of Marin for the Ritter Center, a program for the homeless, we created "Cassandra's House" after Cassandra in Greek mythology whose prophetic insights; her warnings and concerns were dismissed or disbelieved. Cassandra had dedicated her life to beauty and was so beautiful herself that Apollo took a liking to her and gave her the gift of prophecy. But, when she spurned Apollo’s amorous advances, he was incensed. Because the gods cannot rescind a gift once given, he cursed her so that no one would believe her prophecies. Hence she was driven mad and wandered the streets of Troy warning of Greeks bearing gifts. She foretold the story of the Trojan Horse but no one would listen. What we are presenting here is no prophecy; what we are presenting is real evidence of what is happening in the ocean—washing onto our shores. Two people gathered the 1,241 pieces of plastic on our house in 2 hours from Kehoe Beach in the Point Reyes National Seashore. The plastic was selected from the tons of plastic on the beach, color-coordinated to accomplish our design.
