“Wake Up,” ©2023, 20.5in, Mixed Media
99% of Plastic is Made from Fossil Fuels
The biggest influence in my work are the tidal pools of my childhood, primarily on the Thimble Islands off Stony Creek in Connecticut, where I would get lost in wonder. The shimmering surface of the sea when hit by sunlight, along with glinting mica and the rich life of marine animals thriving in these tiny ecosystems, had me transfixed. Now, living on Long Island Sound, I traverse the local beach, full of plastic pollution, picking up as much as I can and reusing it along with plastic toys I save from landfills. Mostly obtained from a giant warehouse of manmade objects that have been discarded and mistreated so that most will remain unwanted in this last chance location where they are offered cheaply by the pound before being shipped off to landfills, incinerators, and other countries to become someone else’s problem, I buy these plastics to give them a second life. Then, I create my own revised tidal pool-like ecosystems that tell a different story about the destruction and poisoning of these natural systems.
When I started this particular series called “Signs of the Times,” it began as a way to process my life experiences. However, with the climate crisis ever-deepening, I have shifted the focus of my decades-long material choices of other people’s offcasts as the medium for personal storytelling to the materials themselves, particularly plastics.
See the ongoing series and how it is evolving HERE. It’s time to WAKE UP, find alternatives to plastic, and eliminate plastic pollution and our obsession with more and more “stuff.”