collected

To celebrate and raise awareness for Earth Day, we had an art auction at work. I made this piece for it titled 'collected'*. Over the past few weeks I’ve been going to the beach every day after work - beach combing and collecting. My initial thought for this project was to make a collage out of all-natural elements found at the beach, but, once I started collecting I quickly realized I was finding more plastic than anything else. These days our So-Cal beaches are covered with so much plastic and trash it makes me sick - and this art piece is the result. It’s impossible to find a shell anymore without finding 20 pieces of trash to go along with it. How did we let it come to this? Let this be a reminder to help keep our beaches clean and next time you go out for a surf, when you leave, bring some of that trash with you.

*Thanks to Brett, Brent, Dad, Mom and Bill for helping me with this project - I couldn't have done it without you (and all your tools :) !).