Saturday, April 20, 2024

The Great Conveyor


 

 Blog post from the Oakland Museum of California    April 18, 2024

   
  

Earth Day is April 22, and this year’s theme is Planet vs. Plastics. 

Is it possible to be plastic-free? You may already know that plastic trash in the ocean is a huge problem for wildlife. Single-use plastics, like straws, bottle caps, and water bottles, make their way through storm drains to rivers and streams and then to the ocean. Much of that debris washes back up onto our beaches, but a large amount remains afloat where the wind and water break it into smaller pieces.

Here are the top 10 items that account for 80% of all garbage in our oceans. 

  • Cigarettes
  • Bottle caps/lids
  • Plastic bottled beverages
  • Plastic bags
  • Food wrappers and containers
  • Eating utensils
  • Glass bottles 
  • Straws/stirrers
  • Beverage cans
  • Paper bags

This month, we invite you to visit our Gallery of California Natural Sciences to learn more about the interaction between humans and the natural world. Hear from the voices of local community members and scientists, and discover how you can make a difference. 

Judith Selby Lang and Richard Lang’s work, The Great Conveyor, represents the waste stream of single-use plastic caps and bottles found wayside in gutters, creeks, rivers, bays, oceans and on the beach.  On the ceiling, The Great Conveyor represents the waste stream of single-use plastic caps and bottles found wayside in gutters, creeks, rivers, bays, oceans, and on the beach. Plastic caps of every color can be found in the  “Rainbow Drawer.” Find bottles washed ashore from near and far away, from around the Pacific Rim, in the  “Bottle Drawer.” In the “Apothecary Jars” you’ll see a few of the common items from our collection. Were any of these once yours?

Over the years, Selby and Lang collected pounds and pounds of plastic from one small stretch of Kehoe Beach in the Point Reyes National Seashore with the hope that their artwork can inspire others to take just one small action for the environment. They believe that together we all can make a world of difference. 

Saturday, April 13, 2024

You Made that with Plastic?

For an exhibit at the Gualala Art Center, Mirka Knaster, with co-curator Paula Haymond, asked the timely question, You Made that with Plastic?  Eighteen fine artists with thoughtful responses, answered with expert artistry and doses of good humor. 


Our beach plastic ATV made the trek with us as we drove HWY 1 winding through Bodega Bay, Jenner, Fort Ross, Timbercove, Sea Ranch then on up to Gualala. Spectacular ocean views, abundant wildflowers, and the companionable enjoyment of each other's company made for a perfect day trip getaway.

We were invited to bring our black plastic to do a reprise of RIDE-ON  our successful pile-up at 120710 in Berkeley. But not wanting to repeat ourselves plus knowing that each venue offers a new way to display, we wanted to do it differently.

Thanks to Artforum (January 2024), we found the answer. 


How could it be that we had never heard of esteemed conceptual artist Bernar Venet whose work built on the legacies of Dada, Fluxus, and Minimalism? His first sculptural work, Pile of Coal (1963) expressed the force of gravity when the material, dumped into a heap, took its form. This performative gesture was his embrace of “randomness, disorder, and unpredictability.”


When we caught sight of the photo of Venet unloading his dump truck of coal, something clicked, a light went on, and the idea of our black plastic being enacted as a performative event would offer a different way of turning our trash into treasure and, in this case, with a bow to the historical antecedents of piles — Smithson, Vautier, Kaprow. 


Mirka agreed to dump our bins, letting the plastic fall where it may. HUZZAH, we were so happy!!! as we watched the plastic tumble into place. Our ATV vehicle was placed on top of that pile. 



Our piece, now named PILE IT ON, is literally and figuratively, in the center of the gallery, and is the center piece of the show.



You Made that with Plastic?
About the necklaces, Judith writes:

Each piece of plastic used in the creation of this jewelry was collected from a 1,000-yard stretch of Kehoe Beach in the Point Reyes National Seashore. The brightly colored bits are "curated" from the confetti strew that washes up onto the beach. In my studio, they are cleaned, sorted into color and kind then become my "inventory." Sometimes an unusual shape will spark a design reverie. Sometimes the rich surface, the sea-buffeted patina will incite the creative process. Sometimes the recognizable part of something (a piece of a comb or a juice lid) will evoke the question — could that have once been mine?


Wearing one of my eye-catching pieces always attracts much attention and is a perfect segue to talk about problems with plastic in our oceans and on our beaches. Although the news about plastic pollution is dire, by putting a little fun and fashion into the conservation conversation, I hope that the value of the plastic detritus will increase so that soon everyone will be out at the beach “shopping” for a special piece of plastic trash or will be eager to “mine” the North Pacific Gyre for plastic treasures. Then, we get some great things to wear and to look at, plus we get a clean and healthy sea.


After years of collecting plastic, I craft my choicest finds into unique art-to-wear pieces —hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind, made exclusively from Kehoe Beach plastic. They can be worn or displayed as a precious artifact, a relic of contemporary consumer culture.

                                                        Widening Gyre


                                                                                            Pacifier Two 

You Made that with Plastic?
About the bracelets, Judith writes:

When opening their milk carton in the morning most people don’t even notice the plastic pull-tab. It’s so small, it's nigh invisible. Milk used to come in clear glass bottles delivered on one's doorstep. Years later, at the store, milk was bought in a boxy wax carton with a fold-open spout. Now, in the name of sanitation and convenience, milk cartons have been “improved” with plastic safety pull-tabs. Now, thousands of these ubiquitous tabs are making their way to the landfill and some times end up on the beach.


To draw attention to this blight, I made a bracelet by looping one loop inside the other and on around until the final one loops into the first one. People always take note of my unique jewelry, which gives me the opportunity to talk about plastic and to encourage action about everything, even about milk cartons. 




You Made that with Plastic?

The artists, the artworks, and the enthusiastic crowd made for an exciting opening reception. You made that with plastic? sparked talk aplenty and many more questions. 

 

We hope that gallery visitors will think about our pile of black beach plastic — what we, just two people, collected from just 1,000 yards of one beach, Kehoe Beach in the Point Reyes National Seashore. That they will take a close look and hopefully, discover in the mess of shards and fragments, recognizable objects and ask themselves, could that comb have once been mine? and ponder — what can we do with the wreck of our petroleum-based consumer culture? 


Mirka Knaster's summary and review of the show Turning Plastic into Art.