Fortunate

Although it has been years since we had given the book Winnie the Pooh a serious read, after seeing the movie at the Disney Museum we realized it was time to revisit the profound philosophies in this so-called "tales for children." John Tyerman Williams in his scholarly book Pooh and the Philosophers describes Jean Paul Sartre's major philosophical work Being and Nothingness as "the longest single footnote" to Winnie the Pooh ever written. He believes that Sartre's wordy discourse about existential nothingness can be summed up in these succinct and sage words:

"What I like doing best is Nothing."

"How do you do Nothing," asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time.

"Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, 'What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?' and you say, 'Oh, Nothing,' and then you go and do it.

It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

"Oh!" said Pooh.

From start to finish, our Disney day was nothing but pure magic. We meandered from the fantastic landscape of Walt's world to dancing in the waves and digging in the sand at Crissy Field we had, in fact, taken Pooh to heart. We don't need much to make us happy - a little sand, a little surf and an active imagination.

It was a fine day for fun with family plus this shiny plastic wrapper found washed up in the tideline, that says it all —how very fortunate we are!!!

Time after Time

When Anand Pandian, anthropologist and scholar from Johns Hopkins University, arrived we had some idea about what he had in mind for his visit - something about spending the first day taking a deep look at our beach plastic with his eye turned toward our collection as an example of the Anthropocene; spending the second day at Kehoe Beach collecting plastic so that he could observe us in action. 

But when he walked in carrying a beautiful bouquet of local flowers that he described as part of the slow flowers movement, it was an generous expression of thanks and a foreshadowing of the conversations about time that were to become the leitmotif of his visit. 

From discussions about locally sourced flowers to the eons of geological time; from the thrill of finding clastic plastiglomerate at Kehoe Beach to the counting of every piece of plastic we picked up (754) it was an expansive two days of thought-provoking that left us full of many more really good questions than answers. 

When he departed with a ribbon of yellow polypropylene rope for a bracelet, he was ready to make a "fashion statement" about plastic on the beach. As soon as the rope was around his wrist, in the habit of looking a watch, he did a double- take as he quizzically considered that yellow band and the knot. Then, in an AH-HA moment of creative insight, he looked up and pronounced the bracelet a watch — the rope had become a time keeper of geological proportion and a reminder of keeping a "watch" on our human activity.

The question:

What time is it?

The answer: 
It all depends on how you look at it.

The question: 
What time would you like it to be?

Trashures

When designer Anja Brunt and illustrator Tineke Meirink invited our participation in Trashures, it was a dream come true.

This dynamic duo, intrigued by the beauty of the mundane, with a keen eye for stylish clean lines of European design, brought together 15 international artists who repurpose trash in inventive and beautiful ways.

Several years ago we were encouraged by a book agent to write a cookbook style DIY book about our beach plastic project. Although we love to cook, when thinking about the how-to-make crafty plastic, we tried and failed. We even went so far as to conduct a focus-group to help us develop hands-on activities.

Anja and Tineke have done it!  Their beautifully designed book with step-by step instructions is the fulfillment of an idea we had wrestled with then abandoned. They have cooked it up right. 

Soup's on…

Order Trashures here.