oikonos

Plastic Pollution
I paint and create installations in the San Francisco Area and on the Big Island of Hawaii.
I have begun to see my work in relation to whole natural systems: Like ecosystems, they are made of many layers, each dependent on the functionality, well-being, and life energy of all others and of the whole.

Ten years ago I found an additional home in Hawaii near South Point. Like other tourists I went to see the famous shore where the first Hawaiians set foot and followed the shoreline from South Point to Green Sands Beach. I was struck by the intense colors of the landscape: Ochre earth, green/ black volcanic sand, blue sky and blue/green water. The winds there are strong, and with the heat from the sun they intensified my sensory systems and I was filled with beauty. Then I saw my first beach littered with garbage. I was dumbfounded. I asked my neighbors, "Why would the county put the dump here?"
They told me that the garbage and debris I saw had all floated in on the ocean currents. I was shocked.

I went back. I saw fishing nets, lines and other marine industry equipment. These were horrible enough because entangled within the derelict nets I found marine mammal, fish and bird bones, but then I found the unexpected: Pieces of televisions, laundry baskets, lighters, plastic bottles, plastic containers, toothbrushes, all manner of waste from industrial and household garbage. Where had these come from? And all of it was made of plastic! On each succeeding beach I found different weights and densities of plastic objects. On one I found very tiny bits of plastic in myriad colors, like perfect tiles for mosaic work.

While horrifying, the bright colors of these plastics against nature's ochres, blacks and blues were also beautiful. In turn, the bizarre beauty of these contrasts-earth colors versus industrial dyes, what nature intended juxtaposed with the bending of nature-made this scene even more heartbreaking.

Earlier in San Francisco I had worked with concerns about landfills, excessive waste, and insufficient recycling, but the specific issue of plastic pollution had not hit me till I saw it in raw nature on those beaches in Hawaii. As I made the connection that the plastic garbage on these beaches had been brought by ocean currents from far away land sources, the problem of plastic pollutants became resident in my heart, a passion and a subject for my artwork.

Artistic process is a key to change. Through the process of art, either as creator or audience, we embrace the ambiguities of being human and emerge informed, more conscious, and ready to make decisions and take actions that better protect and conserve the planet on which we live.