Friday, February 23, 2024

Spotlight

Judith writes: 

This feature story came as a total surprise!!! Arriving on my computer with a flash. 

I've have worked with Tricia Watts from ecoartspace on several projects, 

but had no idea she was shining this spotlight. We go way back to the Waterlilies (2009) 

floating on the pond at the Marin French Cheese Factory.


Many thanks to Tricia and ecoartspace for all that they do to support the arts, 
bringing together artists, scientists, professionals, students and advocates, 
sharing resources and each other's work. To join HERE.


Member Spotlight l Judith Selby Lang

Monday, February 19, 2024 10:39 AMAnonymous

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

February 19, 2023

This week we recognize  Judith Selby Lang, and her works made since 1999

in collaboration with her partner Richard Lang, working with plastic 

debris collected along the Point Reyes National Seashore in Northern 

California.


Unaccountable Proclivities, 2001 (above), combines the colors of the 

ocean plastic that mimics and compliments Fiesta®Ware plates. 

It was an unaccountable proclivity that moved them to create these 

arrangements. By carefully collecting and "curating" the bits of plastic, 

they fashion them into works of art that matter-of-factually show, 

with minimal artifice, the material as it is. The viewer is often 

surprised that this colorful stuff is the thermoplastic junk 

of our throwaway culture. As they deepened their practice they found, 

like archeologists, that each bit of what they find opens 

into a pinpoint look at the whole of human culture. 

Each bit has a story to tell.


 click images for more info


Unintended Consequences (above) was a series of photographs presented

at the U.S. Art in Embassies, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia,                

September 2010 - June 2012, organized by the US Art in Embassies program    

and was a collaboration between Ambassador John Bass and                  

Assistant Curator Claire D'Alba.



for here or to go?, 2021 (above) was a large scale installation 

presented at Lands End, at the former Cliff House, San Francisco, 

a project of the FOR-SITE Foundation. In the kitchen, the steam tables 

were filled with white plastic and white ceramic plates were piled 

with white beach plastic. All of the plastic dished up was found only 

on 1000 yards of Kehoe Beach in the Point Reyes National Seashore. 

It wasn’t left by negligent picnickers. Most of it has been at sea 

a long time before washing ashore. When the common use of plastic 

found its way into our lives during WWII, plastic was touted 

as an exciting new material that would revolutionize and indeed, 

it has provided new hips and knees, allowing for unbelievable 

medical advances. But we’ve been inundated with “convenience” 

and a throw-away ethos. In the swirl of debris, from food shopping 

to consumer goods, plastic is the unseen background of daily living. 

Besides the blight of plastic itself, a mad scientist's brew of toxic 

chemicals is leaching into our bodies. We have learned that every human 

being has traces of plastic polymers in their bloodstream. 

That’s the bad news we live with these days. 

There really is no choice when asked,"for here or to go?"


Ride-On, 2024 (above) featuring all-black plastic and a toy ATV, 
was exhibited recently in the exhibition “Far away is NOW” at 120710 
gallery in Berkeley. "It is a complex reminder of our actions and their 
consequences on our environment,” says Francis Baker, the exhibit’s curator. 
“Another revelation occurs when one realizes that this is just the 
all-black plastic. The artists are using this to symbolize oil. 
It also amazes me to think about how much plastic there is that washes up, 
that they collect, for them to have a pile this big of fully black pieces. 
This makes me realize what we as a society are doing to our environment.”

all of it (well, alot of it anyway), 2023 (below) was presented by FOR-SITE’s                                   The Guardhouse project at Fort Mason, San Francisco, California, Summer 2023.                                After nearly a quarter century of collaboration the Lang's excavated their                                    two-ton collection of beach-found plastic objects to showcase a sampling of                                    “all of it” so they might see our consumer choices reflected in their materials. 

This assorted thermoplastic junk-treasure dating back to as early as 1948 washed 
in from the Pacific Ocean onto one beach, a .6-mile stretch of the Point Reyes 
National Seashore, 50 miles north of San Francisco. The installation confronted 
the artists with evidence of this material continuing to amass not just in 
coastal deposits, but inside our bodies, and in the geological record of our 
time on planet earth. "all of it" was presented in partnership with Fort Mason 
Center for Arts & Culture.



































Judith Selby Lang, along with her partner Richard Lang, have rambled 1000 meters
of tide line on Kehoe Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore in Northern California,
 to gather plastic debris washing out of the Pacific Ocean and have collected 
over two tons of material. Their artwork has been featured in over seventy exhibitions 
in galleries and museums; educational and science centers including the 
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artist Windows, the United Nations World 
Environment Day, the Cummings Gallery at Stanford University, and the University 
of San Francisco. Exhibition venues include the California Academy of Sciences, 
Sausalito's Marine Mammal Center, The Oakland Museum, Hong Kong's Ocean Film Festival. 
They were cited as co-authors in a report from the University of Tokyo about 
concentrations of pollutants in plastic pellets published in the 
2009 Marine Pollution Bulletin. TV segments have included appearances 
on the PBS Newshour, The Travel Channel, Wowow Tokyo and The Today Show. 
In talks about the project they have appeared at the Newseum in Washington, DC, 
The Dallas Art Museum, California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, 
Oakland Museum, Oxbow School in Napa, CA, and California College of the Arts 
in SF. Their projects have been supported by the Feigenbaum Nii Foundation, 
the Arts and Healing Network and the Open Circle Foundation. Plastic Forever- 
Finding Meaning in the Mess is the working title for their forthcoming book 
about their art and plastic adventures. www.beachplastic.com


Featured images (top to bottom): ©Judith Selby Lang with Richard Lang, Unaccountable Proclivities, 2001; 
Unintended Consequences, photography exhibition at the U.S. Art in Embassies, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, 
September 2010 - June 2012; or here or to go? at Lands End at the former Cliff House, San Francisco, California, 
a FOR-SITE Foundation project, 11/07/21- 3/27/22; Ride-On, 2024, at 120710 gallery, Berkeley, California, 
January 2024; “all of it (well, alot of it anyway)” for FOR-SITE’s The Guardhouse project at Fort Mason, 
San Francisco, June 24 - August 31, 2023; portrait of the artists.


ecoartspace, LLC Mailing address: PO Box 5211 Santa Fe, New Mexico 87502
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Sunday, January 21, 2024

Rain or Shine

Rain or shine; shine or rain; in anticipation of the closing event Saturday, January 13 for Far Away is NOW… we were checking the weather report every day. With the sun being the important partner for a sun-print workshop we were afraid that we would not be able to offer the opportunity to create lumen prints and cyan-lumen prints.

Thanks to our colleagues Ron Moultrie Saunders and Francis Baker, an indoor darkroom with UV lights and cardboard boxes was set up and outside tables were ready-set for the sun. We added our beach plastic to the pile of plastic that Francis had prepared and we were ready for action. And there was action aplenty as folks experimented with the placement of the shapes and the length of the exposure.










It was our good luck that the day brought both rain and shine (well, not exactly shine but overcast with enough light to expose the prints). Francis explains the process.







Ron invited folks to try his technique of water on paper.







The results were amazing  — drum roll please — with lots of oohs and ahhs as the process developed.


Look at Sharon McDonnell's artful arrangements and the prints with subtle shapes and the beautiful blush of lavender. 









We were thrilled that even with the inclement weather, lots of folks turned out. They braved the storm and braved the address that is one and the same as the gallery name 120710.art

Thanks to Colleen Bidwell from the Marin IJ. Her article From mess to meaning helped to get the word out in a grand way, in print and online, with eye-catching photos, 84 pt. headline!!! and many column inches. 


That said, No rain is gonna fall on our parade.



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Thursday, December 21, 2023

Winter Solstice 2023


It was the best of times, 

it was the worst of times, 

it was the age of wisdom, 

it was the age of foolishness, 

it was the epoch of belief, 

it was the epoch of incredulity, 

it was the season of Light,

it was the season of Darkness, 

it was the spring of hope, 

it was the winter of despair. 

                                                                 

                                                                             Charles Dickens


This glowing orb is a nurdle, a pre-production plastic pellet, found on Kehoe Beach. Magnified 30x. It represents all of the above: best/worst, wisdom/foolishness, belief/incredulity, Light/Darkness, hope/despair.

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WHEW!!! And yes, WHEW!!!

In 2023 our One Beach Plastic has been challenged by opportunities to exhibit our work in traditional and non-traditional art spaces and museums. We continue our mission to find and present "meaning in the mess." 

We hope that you will spend some time poking around our posts: 

For the display cases at Green’s we added to the place-based culinary delights in celebration of  FOR-SITE's 20th anniversary Birthday Bash with greens to go:

https://plasticforever.blogspot.com/2023/03/greens-to-go.html



For FOR-SITE’s The Guardhouse at Fort Mason:

“all of it (well, alot of it anyway)”

https://guardhouse2023.wordpress.com/postcard/



Far Away is Now at 120710.art in Berkeley

https://plasticforever.blogspot.com/2023/11/far-away-is-now.html


Food for Thought at the Randall Museum

https://plasticforever.blogspot.com/2023/11/food-for-thought.html


Sashay at ODC in SF

https://plasticforever.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-artist-climate-collective-is.html

Banned and censored books were much in the news this year. At Arion Press we did our part to address this important issue.

https://unbanned2023.wordpress.com/

At home at RanchoD we are blessed with a bountiful gardening and are enjoying what we call a Festival Of Food:


WHEW !!! And yes, WHEW !!!


We know that we have said it, and we will say it again,

there is plenty to party,

⛄🕎🎄🎁🔔🥂🎉🗓

so we extend an invitation to come on over, 

let's enjoy a meal and celebrate.


With love and gratitude,

R&J


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