Plastic Party Auction Item

At the gala fundraiser for San Geronimo Valley Community Center we donated a tour of Art Mind Park and our home/studios as an auction item. We are happy that Kelly and Kelly bid big $$$. When we finally had a day of sunshine we hosted their group.

After our tour, we headed to our neighbors David and Julie who continued the festivities with a delicious spread of delectables. Another table was set with plastic. In an undeniable testimony to the creative spirit, each person, expressed their distinctive vision through color and shape.       

greens to go...

Greens is a beloved San Francisco restaurant destination, founded in 1979 by the San Francisco Zen Center to provide a place for vegetarian cuisine served as a fine dining experience. Over the years we’ve enjoyed many a tasty meal there enhanced by the spectacular view of the Bay and beyond to the Golden Gate Bridge.

With the advent of Covid, when inside dining came to a halt, they amped up their take-out and to-go counter to help them keep going during the lockdown.

When Cheryl Haines called to invite us to help celebrate FOR-SITE's 20th Anniversary Birthday Bash on March 9 with a dinner at Greens…asking, do you think we could do something with the entry space and the to-go counter? Without hesitation, we said YES.

Since we have at-the-ready an extensive inventory sorted by color and kind, we can be agile and quick to respond when opportunities come our way. So we started cooking and plating up with green. We have plenty in all shades of green, variations of light green, dark green and everything in between: turquoise to chartreuse, myrtle to mantis.

It was Cheryl and FOR-SITE that organized the Lands End exhibit where we presented for here or to go? in the kitchen at the Cliff House. We do love being on the case and in this case, it's the to-go cases at Greens. We were thrilled to fill their counters and displays with greens. 

Much gratitude to Lisa Ellsworth who was there on the spot to help, with ideas about the lighting and the lift of the plates, the tilt of a piece of foam — with little touches that made the installation sing.

For an artist there is nothing much better than having a vision then having the opportunity to realize that vision. It was a lot of work for one night only but we do ❤️ Greens and we do ❤️ FOR-SITE.

 

OK, now, just ask us what we can do in YELLOW…

Photographer Claudine Gossett captured the spirit of this celebratory event — the posed and the candid, the cheers and the tears of joy on this very special evening. 

https://store.claudinephoto.com/forsite20th/

Password is: Marina Blvd (case sensitive).

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UNBOTTLED

 

Today, TA! DA!  Today, we made history in UNBOTTLED. It was a special thrill to gaze into the vitrine at the Marin History Museum and see a selection of bottles we have collected from Kehoe Beach: seven of our plastic bottles and our one-and-only glass bottle with a message from the 2000 presidential election Gush v. Bore.

Judith writes:

As a child I aspired to be a paleontologist. Every day after school with friends I would mine the white limestone cliffs in the woods near our house in Dallas. We always hoped to find a dinosaur and spent untold hours excavating a mound where we were certain we would discover a skeleton.

The Natural History Museum of Dallas has an excellent display of fossils and ammonites from the surrounding area. So I would go to look and identify what we were digging up. I would longingly gaze into the specimen vitrines and wish upon wish that someday one of my fossils would be on display with a label attribution that had details about the rarity of the find; the latitude and longitude of the site, notes about the Era, Period, Epoch and yes, across the vast expanse of geological time would be MY name as the collector.

Fast forward some 60 + years, I now find myself to be an artist/archeologist mining the beach in search for remnants of plastic, future fossils from the Plasticene. So, in a way, I have become what I had always hoped. Because of the things that we find, we frame them as archeological remnants. They are indicators of our consumer culture and they will be around for a long, long time. They really are exemplars of our existence in the same way that the fossils are.

HERE in the Marin IJ, Vicki Larson writes about the history of Marin through its bottling industries that includes a link HERE to Christian Goepel's 2009 story about "Forest Knolls artists make statement." 

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Under Water

January 21-April 8, 2023 at the Palo Alto Art Center

The PAAC writes:

Under Water explores the rich undercurrents in the water around us, through work in a wide range of media by a diverse collection of artists. The exhibition addresses diverse topics around water—what is in our water, how much we consume, how climate change has impacted water, how humans have sought to control water sources and to what effect, and the symbolic role of water in moving people literally and metaphorically.

The artists in Under Water explore a range of concerns lurking under the surface, bringing them to light. In this exhibition, we will find an exploration of the significance of water as a medium for migration and the role of water in environmental justice. Some artists use research, mapping and measuring data to share perspectives on water use, facts, and effects. Works in the exhibition help us experience the impact of sea level rise and realize the environmental benefits of marshlands. Other artists creatively address water pollution, plastic waste, and the impact of climate change on ocean temperatures and ecosystems.

Artists in the exhibition include: Kim Anno, Barbara Boissevain, Sukey Bryan, Judith Content, Jeffrey Downing, Ana Teresa Fernández, Linda Gass, Tanja Geis, Liz Hickok, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Hughen/Starkweather, Judith Selby Lang and Richard Lang, Trinh Mai, Danae Mattes, John Sabraw, Adrien Segal, Joan Takayama-Ogawa.

https://www.facebook.com/paloaltoartcenter/videos/871045607466066/

Judith writes:

Under Water might be an under statement. We were so buoyed by the enthusiastic crowd at the opening reception and the many positive comments about the show and our work. What a wonderful evening. 

It was Karen Kienzle's brilliant curatorial decision to display our ghost net and the nurdles in proximity, front and center, making visible these two nigh invisible pieces of plastic pollution. 

In the interest of making the artwork accessible to the visually impaired, the PAAC asked for recorded descriptions. 

Here is a sample of one. Have a listen:

https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/Departments/Community-Services/Arts-Sciences/Palo-Alto-Art-Center/See-Art/Exhibitions/Current-Exhibitions/Under-Water-Exhibition-Page/Judith-Selby-Lang-and-Richard-Lang

Judith Selby Lang and Richard Lang About the artistsFor the past two decades Judith Selby Lang and Richard Lang have collected over two tons of plastic trash from 1000 yards of Kehoe Beach along the Point Reyes National Seashore in California. The transformation of plastic debris into engaging works of art is... www.cityofpaloalto.org

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Caltrans... from this to that

 

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The Plastic Turn

 

The cover of The Plastic Turn by Ranjan Ghosh features COMBS from our Kehoe Beach collection. Ghosh is a brilliant academic and thinker who teaches at the Department of English, University of North Bengal, India. His wide-ranging interests include literature, philosophy, education, environmental humanities, and of late, he has turned his attention to plastic. The book is set to be released on November 15. The e-book is now available.(Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2022) 

UPDATE 01/31/2023

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