Recology AIR+ Eco Art Matters

This piece is about a 2,300 acre solar project that has been approved to be built in my hometown that will destroy 4,276 Western Joshua Trees. The project was approved in October 2021, but construction still hasn’t started–the new update is that the US has banned the import of solar panels from China because it is suspected they are built using slave labor, which has interrupted construction (for now). Originally I wanted to find recycled solar panels to print on, but I found these perfect linoleum tiles in the trash I could make to look like solar panels. I wanted to superimpose the image of a Joshua Tree on an image of a solar panel to show that we can not neglect to protect this keystone species in the scramble for “green” energy. I rearranged the tiles to create images reminiscent of the trees being cut down. I titled this piece Keystones to remind us that Joshua Trees are a keystone species, and when they are threatened an entire ecosystem is threatened. There is no reason this solar farm should be built on such a biodiverse stretch of high desert. 

Captured within these three shadow boxes are photographs of styrofoam chunks I found one April day within a short stretch of coastal bramble in Alameda, California. I was fascinated by the resulting organic shapes of an inorganic material produced by the natural application of wind, water, sun and time. Fascination turned to shock when in my effort to remove it, the foam chunks broke into the smaller pieces and were carried away by the breeze like dandelion seeds. Assembled from old styrofoam trays, these shadow boxes invite the viewer to look closer, quite literally in the weeds.

The paper food wrap “flowers” that move through the piece are a reminder of the emotions I felt in the beauty of that day. The discarded paper was sourced from Recology, abandoned for reasons unknown but ready for new life. To my delight, the paper’s square shape brought back childhood memories of folding origami and paper airplanes. Similar to styrofoam, food napkins and paper wraps are another source of wind-borne trash that could be easily addressed by limiting its use and proper disposal.

This story and illustration emerged from the class I took at Laney College in Oakland during the Spring 2022 semester—Eco Art Matters—taught by Sharon Siskin and Minoosh Zomorodinia. Petra Kuppers was the speaker that day, and she led us in an exercise where we connected with our immediate environment and imagined the journey that the natural materials around us took on their way to arriving in our lives. I imagined the tree’s journey to becoming the chair I was sitting on, and this story and illustration were born. The original is part of a hand-drawn book I created to document the material presented in class throughout the semester, in the format of art responses.

We are in a period of transition; we do not know if for better or worse. I recycled my 2013 sculpture into a house for Native bees because I am deeply committed to ensuring our transition protects, values, and honors Mother Nature, even our smaller members without whom there would be no us.

Flowers, who doesn’t love flowers? Native bees not only depend on their pollen to feed themselves and their young, we would have few flowers without our bee friends.

We are facing historical levels of famine brought on by our own destructive acts. But, it’s not only humans that need to feed, all life needs to eat. We need to promote sustainability for all.

To make a statement about the importance of a diverse planet, and to stop thousands of straws from entering our oceans and landfills, I collected all the straws from the Chabot theater where I work to create this project. The theater agreed to replace these straws with compostable ones! Although this will have a small impact on the overall well-being of our planet, and may cause zero structural change, I hope it will be cause for a conversation.

I strung hundreds of straws onto plastic fishing wire (from Recology) to form a fluid canvas of straws. I then painted a figure embodying the fluidity and queerness of our planet.

The irony of the piece is that it has been formed from the same substance that is robbing us of our fluidity, our queerness, and our diversity; plastic (more largely representing capitalism).

My hope is that the piece will strike up a conversation about its intrigue, its truth, and its obvious impersonation.

This work aims to incorporate visible mending as a form of protest against fast fashion while also honoring the memory of my mentor, Dan Phillips. These jeans belonged to Dan and were worn on the job sites where he built houses out of recycled materials. As a kindred spirit and mentor in concern for the reckless amount of consumption and waste being created on the planet, Dan mended many lives. His recycled houses provided affordable homes to low income people, and his building company provided income, job skills, and mentorship to many crew members. His company, the Phoenix Commotion, inspired by the mythological phoenix rising from the ashes, inspired the flames I embroidered on the jeans. I used a bandana belonging to Dan to mend the worn places, and intentionally placed the McCoys logo in one section. McCoys is a local building supply company that had a long-time relationship with Dan, often donating inventory to him to avoid throwing it away. Dan Phillips passed away on the Winter Solstice, Dec 21, 2021, after a long battle with cancer. He was a remarkable person, and I am a profoundly better human because of having known him as a mentor and friend.