Art Portfolio Two - Plastic Fantastic, Initial Idea

There are endless possibilities to how I can reuse plastic to form creative art. Plastic comes in many shapes forms and it is used daily in every household. Globally we produce over 300 million tons of plastic every year of which more than 8 million tons are dumped in the oceans. It causes environmental problems and threatens marine life unfortunately, because it is indestructible and stays there for hundreds of years after us. I care about the environment and I would like to leave this planet in a better shape than how I found it. My logic behind this is that plastic would be best use in art rather than be at the bottom of the oceans. Also it costs money and energy to recycle it.

To do my part I have to draw inspiration from others. So I just googled 'Plastic Art' and from pictures I found this project. It is called 'Bristol Whales' by the local artist Sue Lipscombe who wanted to raise public awareness about pollution. This public art sculpture is made of two parts. The whale's head and tale are made of locally produced steel and willow. Bristol's willow is grown over a period of thirty years, harvested for a variety of purposes. And then steamed to make it darker.  And the water waves are made from 130,000 plastic bottles that have been collected from the city's marathon. This inspiring project gives me a lot to think about regarding my 3D piece.

My 'Plastic Fantastic' project will be about environment protection and it's purpose is to elevate conciseness around this subject. I use a lot of plastic daily and throw it away. I will collect plastic bottles and make a sculpture of a sea turtle that have stuck in between the pile of plastic waste struggling to get out to the beach. The turtle will be either wooden 'carved' or glued together from bottle caps. On a plastic board 'the beach' I will place the turtle in the middle and around it will be a pile of bottles as illustrated below.. After that I will garnish it with different plastic materials found at home to resemble waste. I am going to use acrylics to paint the beach sand and the turtle.

As for my 2D pieces, I am going make three paintings using Acrylics and plastic on canvas and wooden boards. They will be about plastic pollution as well. The first piece is about earth, a general impression on the subject, it will be called the 'big picture'. On wooden board I will draw earth trapped in a vertically cut plastic bottle using acrylics and hot glue gun.

Plastic Planet by Laura Ostrowski

The second canvas painting will be a diptych. Two sides of darkness and light depicting a natural scene from the future. One side about how the future would look like if we ignored pollution and kept adding to it in dark and cold colors. The other half will be worm colors with a positive look describing a world without pollution. My third piece will be acrylics on canvas as well. A child casting a fishing pole in a polluted lake and next to him/her a bucket filled with bottles. My fourth 2D piece will be different than the others, a bit more readable than visual. I am going to design an informative leaflet that could be distributed to houses through the post and it will contain facts, statistics and what we can do about plastic pollution.

References:

Plastic Oceans International. 2020. Facts . About Plastic . Help - Plastic Oceans Foundation. [online] Available at: <https://plasticoceans.org/the-facts/> [Accessed 6 July 2020].

Greenpeace USA. (2018). Key Facts About Plastic Pollution. [online] Available at: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/key-facts-about-plastic-pollution/.

Plastic Pollution Coalition (2017). Plastic Pollution Coalition. [online] Plastic Pollution Coalition. Available at: https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2017/5/2/10-inspiring-works-of-art-about-plastic-pollution.

codsteaks.com. (n.d.). Cod Steaks. [online] Available at: http://codsteaks.com/portfolio/public-art/the-bristol-whales [Accessed 6 Jul. 2020].