Beyond Plastics Art and Activism Panel

In this episode, I'm sharing a recording of a live panel event I hosted at MAPSpace gallery during Repurposer Collective's second annual exhibit. 

I'm joined by two incredible artists, Anne Percoco and Cindy Pease Roe, for a conversation about their practices transforming found materials and waste into compelling works of art. 

Anne shares projects ranging from a sculpture made of over a thousand water bottles on a sacred Indian river, to street trash shaped into oysters and leaves. Cindy talks about her 15 years working with marine debris — including a 14-foot great white shark installed at Cape Cod — and her nonprofit UpSculpt, which brings ocean plastic education into schools. 

Facilitated by Beyond Plastics, we cover everything from storage and cleaning techniques to health precautions, the role of artists in addressing climate change, and what it really feels like to pick up trash in public. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did!

https://www.cindypeaseroe.com/

https://annepercoco.carbonmade.com/

https://www.beyondplastics.org/ 

https://www.upsculpt.com/

https://www.rebeccasolnit.net/

This podcast was created by Natalya Khorover. It was produced and recorded by Natalya, as well as researched and edited by her. SALVAGE is a product of ECOLOOP.ART.

If you enjoy this show, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening—and be sure to come back for another conversation with a repurposed media artist. 

Music theme by RC Guida

Visit Natalya’s website at www.artbynatalya.com

Visit Natalya’s community at www.repurposercollective.com

Visit Natalya’s workshops at https://www.ecoloop.art/ 

Transcript

Welcome to Salvage, a podcast for conversations with artists about the repurposed materials they use in their art practice.

Hi and welcome to another episode of Salvage. This one is a little bit different. This episode is a recording of an event that took place at MAPSpace, which is a gallery where Repurposer Collective is having its second annual exhibit, or was having their second annual exhibit. During the exhibit, we did an event with Beyond Plastics, which was an art and activism panel

with two amazing artists, Cindy Pease Roe and Anne Percoco.

This is a recording of that panel. Please enjoy our conversation with really great questions from the audience. And thank you, Beyond Plastics for helping facilitate this event.

Well, thank you, everybody, for being here. Can you hear me? All right. And thank you, Anne and Cindy, for agreeing to be here. And thank you, Beyond Plastics for setting this whole thing up. Would you ladies like to start with going over your practice, giving us a little bit of a peek into your practice first, and then we'll get into the conversation?

Sure. Okay. You want to go any minute? No, it's going first. Okay.

Thanks, Natalya. Thanks for being here. I'm Anne Percoco, and I'm going to start with this piece called Indra’s Cloud. Which I made in Vrindavan, India, in 2008. And it's made of over a thousand water bottles. And there's a, there's a boat under there. So basically, I collected these water bottles from, the, the guesthouse where I was staying at.

There was also a yoga group there, and they went through so many single serving plastic water bottles. I showed them all together using this really cool plastic rope that is was made by this label factory with kind of like, their excess. And then I so those formed kind of like hemispheres and quarter spheres and I made different, different parts of spheres of different sizes, rented a boat for a day and kind of drape them and tie them over a boat and then so basically, the.

Yeah, intact those parts, it's hard to see from that. Well, in order to so that my hands puncture them. Yes. But you didn't slice them right. I didn't slice them. And so the town I was staying at for in the event it's a sacred town, is the birthplace of Krishna and the sacred river Yamuna runs through it.

And so there's this real tension because it's a very holy river. But it's also terribly polluted. There's, like waste from factories, waste from, like domestic, sources. All like from, it's like kind of a lot in Delhi, which is upstream and then working its way downstream to Vrindavan. So even though it's a great blessing to bathe in her in Yamuna's waters, it's also kind of dangerous, but people do it anyway.

So, there's a story, a myth, about the rain god Indra. That's kind of about water resources. And so that's why, I named it Indra's Cloud. So this is, the some of the pollution taking some more of is. And when we, rented the boat for the day, we, navigated it, clockwise circumambulation, which is called from.

And that's when you clockwise circumambulation something a temple, a statue. That's kind of a way of honoring something so that we did that with the whole town. That's cool. Then I'm going to switch over to another piece I made in India called Weather Shield for a migrant dwelling. I was at, residency for site specific art, in Rajasthan, kind of in a rural area.

And, there was, so at the beginning of the residency, they took us around to all these interesting places locally, like villages that make ceramics, villages that do weaving, like a, marble quarry, like a bunch of really cool places. But as I'm sure so many of you would be, I was attracted to, like, the waste.

So, I went, and picked up a bunch of food wrappers that, like, especially those kind of wrappers that have the kind of mirrored foil inside, like a bag of chips, sachets. It's actually. Is that what they call. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. I didn't know that was. And, so I collected a bunch of them. I opened them up.

I cleaned them really well. And then I was thinking about what to do with them. I also saw, a group of migrants, called Banjara, nearby. And I asked somebody from the residency to go with me to help translate, and I asked one, family there, this, woman named, Rekshem if, it would be, if she might be interested and if I made her basically, like a cover for her home, which is like a really makeshift kind of home because they move around and work in different places.

And she said yes. So then I use that, that material and, and packaging teams to make it and actually so she got to keep it. Yeah, she kept it. And, the people from the residency told me that they saw her still using it a year later. Yeah. So, it's useful because it's waterproof. And also it reflects the sun, so.

And it's very hot there. So it's keeps I think it keeps the entire living space cooler. Now, now I'm going to switch to a more recent project, Filter Feeders. And this, these are made to look like oysters. They're obviously layered. Different types of street trash that I picked up near my home, and they're all pretty small.

I'll just scroll through them briefly. So, I'm sure you guys know that oysters have, an amazing ability to filter the water, and they provide that ecological service, but, through overharvesting, they're. The population's gone. Excuse me? Way down in the Hudson River. And now there are a bunch of different organizations working to boost their population.

Underwhelming that actually. Yeah. Apparently I was at mussels and mussels. Maybe. I don't know about mussels, but oysters are coming back because people are trying are supporting them. Yeah. And like I intentionally added more.

And then this is the last piece I'm going to show you guys. It's the most recent one. And for this piece, I basically I got a die cut machine and I made some custom dying shapes of, leaves from my neighborhood. And then, of course, I collected street trash from my neighborhood, and I made the trash into the shapes of leaves scattered in all over the floor of a gallery and let people play with them.

And I provided two push brooms. Sows, and we close the way. I don't like it back. Maybe for the next show. So it was really fun. It was, you know, I love the participatory piece, and I also really enjoyed some of the specific leaves, like all different textures. There's a lot of plastic, but there's also a lot of paper.

You know, like handwritten notes and cards. This is. Yeah, this is like a kind of a glittery one. That's, somebodys phone cover, like phone protector. was shattered, I had to wear gloves to cut that, and, So. Yeah. So this piece is called dismantle. And I kind of think about the, you know, this campaign leave the leaves so that, you know, just thinking about the way that you pick up all the leaves, but they, they have an ecological function.

And, you know, I guess if, you know, the trash, they treated like trash. Okay. Yeah. Can I just ask some questions? So what happened to the bags on the water bottle? Yeah. So after, so after that was over, the, the yoga group where I got the bottles from was shown pictures of my sculpture and, like, told about it.

And then they switched to reusable, like, the big bottles that you can refill. And, the, the bottles themselves. I was working with a local environmental NGO, and they use them to start saplings to plant, in the city.

So sachets. I learned about that from a gal in the Philippines which said that that was their number one problem in the Philippines, washing up and pollution wise. So I just thought I'd share that.

And that was the name of the sachets. And I love, I love what you did with it. I'd love to see a close up of the sewing and how you how you put them together. It was with tape. With tape. But. Yeah, just to see how that worked. I think that's great. Thank you for putting this together beyond plastics, for putting all of this together, Natalie, for all your great communication.

My name is Cindy Pease Roe and I've been working with marine plastics that get picked up off of the beach for the last 15 years, which I lost my mind. I can't believe I've been doing it that long. I started working with it as I think a lot of us, I just. I found it on the beach and I brought it back to my studio and I made a reef out of it.

And I really enjoyed working with it, you know, as a contemporary modern material. It's really interesting in the studio to work with it. And so 15 years later, I do large scale sculptures with it, among other things. And I thought, what I do is, in addition to doing my own work with it, I started a nonprofit called Up Sculpt.

And that's the combination of upcycling and sculpture. I wanted to get kids involved because when I saw what was happening to our beaches, I wanted the kids that were living in Long Island to understand what was happening on their beaches, because they were going to be inheriting this. And I brought it into schools, and we're still in schools

We do virtual programing. It's not a picture of scope, but I just thought it is part of the activism. I wanted to reach out to the community and tell them what was going on 15 years ago. People, most people, did not understand what was happening in the oceans with plastic, and I wanted to let them know about microplastics.

And you're eating them. So, this is, introduction, for up sculpt, that I usually play before, I speak or the director of, sculpt, who, does a great job just mostly speaking these days for me. Okay. And I hopefully we can hear it.

It's hard. You know, when you do something like this, there's an artistic quality, but the story is going to be when they see what it's made out of.

Hi, I'm Cindy Roe. I'm the founder of Sculpt Up Sculpt. It's a combination of upcycling and sculpture. Upcycling means to create something of value that has no value. In our case, we use marine debris that we pick up off of the beach. It's been really a focus on using the ocean plastics in my artwork to tell a difficult story about what's going on in the ocean today.

It's really important, again, as an individual, that you understand that if you drop something when you open up your car door and it flies out, plastic travels hundreds of miles over the land. So it ends up going and flying into

the beach Brigade, Cape Cod National Seashore.

There are things you are not going to expect to that

coastal studies

that that's washing up pans, markers.

There's cutlery, there's bottles, there's lighters, there's straws, all kinds of things, you know, bullet casings, hair brushes, ropes, ropes, ropes. Plastic doesn't go away. It degrades into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics. The animals actually eat the plastics as opposed to their own natural food. It's filling them up so they don't understand that they're actually not getting any nutrition.

So a lot of them starve to death. When I see the damages that are being

done for a school project, I think so

many people think that this issue is out of their reach. It's a really big issue and it's overwhelming for a lot of people. But really, I'm literally just an artist in his pocket on the beach.

You saw this plastic and went home and made a reef out of that, and from there it just snowballed and went on and on.

Tarpan North Atlantic, right. Whale abstract where heron and she's out.

This shark is sugar, also known as Mama Shug. She is a 14ft great white shark that is in front of the Herring Cove Beach House at the Cape Cod National Seashore. Everything that she's made out 100% was picked up off the beach, came in from the oceans. Here we have marine a pulse rate. Marina. Pulse rate is another big thing I find all the time on the beach.

And these will also be really good for the sculpture, because they are designed to be outside on a boat for many, many years and not degrade. So I will be able to use this with the sculpture. We find a lot of this. So here's the here's the bait bags and but you won't even know it. The underside of the boat cushion.

This is installation here. This is a this is siding. You know, the plastic siding and houses right here. Of course this is what we share, right? That's exactly right, chair. Here's another little star story down in the Americas. I like it too. It's so pretty cool. Almost all of that also. Oh, yeah, we can all look for ways that we can individually help.

It Takes a village. I had people helping me all along the way. People who volunteer in the studio, they do beach cleanups. They bring me things in. Working with Ocean Plastics, I realized that I wanted to get children involved so that they understood what was going on. I am hoping that while I speak to all of these kids here in China, that, some of them will come up with some really great ideas and will get out there and get some of that plastic off the beach and start making some really wonderful stuff out of it.

They wouldn't let me near the beaches.

An extraordinary love of the natural world. And we as artists have to all individually do what makes sense for us to do. It's a natural, organic thing. My artwork comes from my heart and I do it to address this issue the only way I know how.

It's okay to pick up after other people, folks.

So I thought that would give you a taste of like that gives you the overall, you know, a feeling. And also you can see a lot of my techniques that I'm using in it. And if you're interested in seeing more, you can go on the Up Sculpt website to the gallery. And there's a lot of videos, including one of how we built out the 26ft giant squid that's at the Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum, so it's fun to see the process if you're interested in it.

There's a lot of information there

Both of you make such fascinating work. But

When you're picking up trash on the street or on the beach and you encounter people, how crazy do you think you are? So what kind of conversations do you have? I can answer that.

If you go to like 13, 14 years ago is in the natural, our local natural food store.

And I was, sitting next to a mother and her child, and she was talking to somebody else. She said, I saw this woman out there. She was picking up this trash is crazy lady. And I was like, okay, that was me. And. Right. And now, you know, 15 years later, it's a different story. People go, thank you.

And I go, okay, you can do it, too. So,

yeah, I guess when I'm walking around my city, keeping my eye out for the trash and I see something, I usually just kind of wait until there's quiet.

So anyways, I did have to wonder about me, I

think that's really where you're like. That is really cool.

Yeah, I've. My beaches are pretty deserted, so I don't have that. Like, I don't have that issue as much as would like a ton of people around and but usually people now know, you know, when they see them coming off the beach, they understand what's going on. And I know it's I think it's harder on the street.

Yeah, but my son totally gets his, his six. So he's like, I think you should use this in your art. It's like, you know, it's mostly like the adults that kind of raise an eyebrow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I work in the suburban woods over here just off of 95, and I carry a bag with me to pick up the trash.

And I keep waiting for somebody to ask me what's in that bag, because people see me picking stuff up, but nobody ever asks. Although one time I did strike up a conversation and it was it was Christmas week and the one was like, oh I'll pick of some trash too, it's Christmas week. It's a good week to do it.

Really. That's the only week you're going to do it.

When you especially used to do a lot of work that you do, your sculptural work goes outside. How does it hold up to the weather?

It's it took me a very. The shark was my first really outdoor sculpture, and I had to figure it out. So I went through a series of, coatings on it that didn't initially work, so I had to find a coating that had the UV protection because, as everybody here knows, plastic degrades in the sun.

And so I knew that it would have to hold up to that and, and, and just protect it in general. So I ended up using an automotive coating. But prior to that, I tried like a, not a marine varnish. I have a, I have a, a sailing and marine background. My brothers are boat builders and wooden boats and things.

So I always I varnished and I did. So I went to what I knew. And what happened is when it went out to Provincetown and we installed it within a couple of months, it looked like it had gangrene and just like started peeling off and I was like, oh my God, this is so bad. I it is unfortunate because it was so pretty, you know, the blues and all the different colors.

And now it's still has it. So we went down and we scraped it as much as we could off of it. And then we, we coated it with an automotive coating and that's holding up brilliantly. I think it's been almost three years that it's been up, which is, which is wild. And it is holding up. So that's that's the secret,

the automotive coating.

Got it everybody.

Thank you. Do you do any work that goes long term outside?

I not not with those kind of materials. Yeah, with natural materials. I've seen some of that. Right. I mean, I had a piece that it was out for maybe a year, but that was made out of wood. Yeah. Yeah. Not in the same way. Yeah. Yeah. I had some pieces that were made from soft plastic that were shaped into birds and hung in trees, and three months later I was on my hands and knees picking up little shreds of plastic.

Yeah. Because they just started degrading. Yeah.

I mean, my biggest fear was you can imagine this shark is in front of Heron Cove, and you look over and there's the Atlantic Ocean right there. And if it started degrading, it would be like blowing right back into the ocean again.

It's something. Yeah. Yeah. It's exactly. Yeah, yeah I see yeah, yeah I see other artists, online making sculptures out of sea plastic essentially.

And I wonder about that. I don't know, I'm assuming some of them are using coatings, or maybe they're not outside for that long. Yeah. Usually. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I figured out that my soft plastics. Two months. That's it. Yeah. It can't be anymore.

What do you think is the role of an artist in this these days?

And with climate change and everything that's happening here,

I have a quote from Rebecca Solnit. If environmental problems are really cultural problems about the nature of our desires and our perceptions, then a crucial territory to explore or transform is the territory of the mind. So, I mean, like that makes sense to me. Like, I think there is something wrong with our culture that we would treat the systems that our lives depend on disregard.

And so, like, how do we change the culture? We can use cultural mediums like art. Maybe that's one way.

You know, I think I can only speak for myself as an artist because I think, in a broader term, artists, all have something of their own individual soul that they need to express. I think in this day and age, I'd like to see I personally would like to see more artists, be more conscious of, of of the natural world and the climate and what's going on around us.

But, you know, sometimes people do just need to see something absolutely beautiful to lift their spirits up. So I think there's a place for everything.

So sometimes when people see my work, they don't realize exactly what it is. So does that does that happen to you?

And does it start a conversation, or do they immediately see what it's made of them?

I really like when there's

that sort of experience with art where you immediately see something and you have one experience, and then you walk closer and you're like, oh, so I think, I really enjoy that. Yeah. And I think that's like part of using found materials is that you can see like that the overall shape from far away.

And then you walk closer and then you realize it's made out of something very familiar to you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah I agree. Yeah.

Okay. Let's go back to techniques. Any favorite techniques. And it doesn't have to be your marine, boat thing. What about you? What if you do a lot of collage? And what's your favorite?

It depends on the material. I like switching it up with different materials in each material. You know, you kind of have to play with it and figure out what works best with it. And. Yeah, but do you have like a go to technique that you always start with? No, I wouldn't I would say that I start by collecting material and then just playing with it.

Yeah. Kind of letting it speak to you. Yeah. It depends if I'm sculpting that's different than if I'm painting or you know what I'm doing. Like very often if I

want to express something I, it's not just limited to sculpture. So I you know I, I will I'll move into another medium as well.

But one of the techniques I use for sculpting is I use ropes a lot, and I wrap the I wrap the metal with the ropes a lot. I kind of outline it all with the ropes and that's. And I start. Once I do that, then I. You can see that I did that in the video. And from there I can then, adhere things and move things around.

And it kind of gives it a continuity that I really like. It's very particular and tedious, which somehow I need. That's an artist that's

like very satisfying when I do that. Absolutely. Okay. Now I have a very important question. Storage. So you collect materials, so you always use them right away when you just keep collecting until you know what to do with them.

And if so, how do you store your materials

and collect small quantities at first. And then I only collect large quantities once. I know what I'm going to do with around. And that's that's that's good. That's that's good.

Yeah. I have two studios. I have one because one is, a gift to, sculpt, which is wonderful.

So I store the majority of my materials there. It's on Long Island, and that's where a lot of the marine debris comes in for my sculptures. When I first started picking up, I picking up plastics. I'd be, like, very particular about it. And, like, oh, yeah, I like that. Or, you know, maybe I could use. Yeah, but I was going to be changing things up that I was really familiar with.

Now when I walk down the beach, everything I see I know I could do something with. So this is the unfortunate thing because I pick it all up now, right? I mean, there's there's some obviously I, you know, goes in the garbage, but most of it. So, to answer your question, I use large plastic clay clear bins.

We, we because I have volunteers and I have assistants that work with me on us. We art, we have like we have sorting days. Okay. So you could walk into the studio and you'll see there's bags that have been dropped off, friends have dropped it off, cleanup groups have dropped off big bags. There's no there's all kinds of garbage and mylar balloons and all kinds of stuff.

And we'll put them all out and we start sorting them. And we sorted by color. We sorted by shape, we sorted by items. And we have bins, large bins for the larger things. We have some medium size ones, smaller ones. It's a lot. Yeah. It's, it's, it's I have shelving across, you know, a whole side. And then in my studio in Connecticut, I just built in really nice big shelving unit that can hold really big bins as well, because I swore when I would when I moved up to Connecticut that I would.

I was not going to do that. I'm not going to bring plastic up here.

And now I have a lot. And I was like, I can't stop working with it. Yeah, it takes a lot. It's a huge amount of storage. Yeah. And then what I will do is if I have a large project like the squid, we put a call out on Instagram on our Instagram Stories asking for people to look for pink, red and orange plastics.

So like, because I knew I wanted to, like, have it be this very vibrant piece and I, got a text from a gal that I knew and she said, hey, I just found this large orange traffic cone down on the beach. Can you know one of the big traffic cans of like, oh my God, thank you.

She dropped it off on my back porch. So I'll come home sometimes and things will be on my back porch, and, you know, they'll be boys or they'll be somebody dropped something off there. And that was the base for the squid. So that's also how I'll get work to get certain things that I need is I'll put a call out for that.

Yeah, but community is great for that. Yeah. We have a great community. Yeah.

Really good town. Yeah. Okay. What about cleaning your materials before use? How do you do that?

With the weather shields. There's. This is, I had three terms of soapy water, and it went from dirty, kind of dirty to clean. So just one after the other because they were pretty oily, right? Oh, yeah. I think for the for a dismantle and the oyster, the filter feeders. I just tried not to collect trash that was too dirty, you know, like after it rains and then like, two days later is a really good time because things have kind of been washed, but then it dried it like, kind of like smooth, like paper kind of smashes together kind of.

And, in a really interesting way. And then it dries like that. So it kind of looks like handmade paper or something. Cool. Yeah.

It's similar. Yeah. It's a series like of washing things. So yeah I have to wash a lot of stuff before I use it. Especially like the soft, the fabrics and things like that.

So yeah, I kind of have to clean everything up. I just use soap and water. Same thing. I kind of have a, I have like a big pail that separated and I just put it in there, stir it around. But I go back, I'll be doing something studio and I come back and I go like that, and I kind of do that all day and then move it like a cleaner batch.

And then, you know, if it's not clean, then, you know, it's crazy. You know, like it's it's a lot of work to prepare these materials before I sculpt with them. And I'm sure before you used your artwork. Yeah. Yeah, it takes a lot of time.

What would you say to someone, to an artist who is, let's say, traditional media artist, and they're intrigued by these weird trash materials. How would you say they should get started?

I guess I would just say whatever you're interested in, you know, like, if you see something that you like, the color you make, the shape you like, the texture, there's, you know, pick it up. But they're like, there's so many benefits to working with found materials, like, it's like the whatever the piece was in its previous lives becomes part of your piece.

That kind of edging is can be so beautiful and that becomes part of your piece. And it's also free. And that's also very good for having a sustainable I have this huge, huge I mean that's

yeah. You're not paying for materials. It's amazing. You know, somebody is doing oil paintings. I mean it's expensive. One tube of, you know, really high quality oils can cost anywhere from $15 to $50, depending on what you're doing.

So it's pretty, pretty cool that it's free. I like that about it.

any questions from the audience?

Sorry, I do have one. How has working with found materials and ways impacted your worldview?

That's a good question.

Gosh, I don't really know how to answer that. I, I feel like when I started working with it, how is it impacted? I just I'd say that I've learned an awful lot more about it. And my eyes are very, very open to it. On a bigger scale, the, from oil companies, the plastic producers, the, the greenwashing, the political, you know, a lot of the politics behind it.

I think that that's and then also in doing it, it's also expanded my view of, in my case, the oceans. And a lot of the other damage is being done on the oceans, overfishing, the entanglement issues, and all of these things, that goes nuts. And, you know, it goes on and on and on. But I have to say that probably, it really politically has expanded my mind in terms of understanding globally what's going on.

Yeah.

You, you, you meant you brought up value in your talk in the beginning. And I think that that's like the main thing for me, and maybe it very well may have come out of working with some materials, just like the idea that our culture says that certain things are valuable and certain things are not valued. But it is so easy to find value in these things that people think are worthless.

And just like questioning that, you know, it got me interested in like, junk spaces, like vacant lots or like weird, you know, corners and buildings that are kind of like, you know, we're desk clerks and, you know, I have, a long term collaboration with another artist. Ali. Ironies about weeds. So, yeah, just to always be questioning, like, what?

Where can I find value in something that most people think has no value? Yeah, yeah. The upcycle. Yeah. I love your time. I think, I think I think that's, I think I,

I think for her Tarp is a great example of that. I mean it's really, you know that love to see it expanded. You know when you think about the amount of sachets that are polluting the world because, third world countries, they buy things in small packets.

They can't afford to buy things in larger packets. So if they need a Tylenol, they're going to get two Tylenol in a little packet. That's how it was explained to me too, why the Philippines have not the third Philippines is a Philippines has a huge, huge issue with it. So number one, marine plastic pollution issue. And I just think finding a use like that, which is, is great.

I love that idea, is to get some the ultimate, cycle. Yeah, yeah. And that looks really cool to us, but that's like,

well, yeah, there's people who are knitting or crocheting plastic bags into sleeping mats. Yeah. For homeless people. Unhoused people. And I, I've actually even seen somebody collecting old sleeping bags and make them into coats and sleeping bags all at once.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's people innovating everywhere. That's wonderful. Yeah. So this is the Patriots headbands. Yes. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. On the subject of the tarp, I was wondering because the firm a

year later, did it catch on with other people in that community like, oh, good idea. I'll make my own car. Will the 200 and become, like, piecing together what happened?

I didn't hear about that. I mean, I, I didn't stay there for that year. It was just too, you know, another artist that I was in touch with, and they didn't mention anything about that. But I did leave, with some some rolls of packing tape in case you need it. Repairs or something.

Yeah. I would be curious how long that held up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess you can go back and do a workshop and teach them all how to make those.

That's a whole, whole other endeavor, I suppose.

Yes, I so he would you describe the, these questions?

Oh,

okay. All right. So, currently, the project that I'm my community project that I'm working on is, called weaving into the amp. I think it's weaving into the Anthropocene. And I built a loom that's about six feet, by repurposing the base of a flat file.

And then I had a friend build the loom parts, and I got these jewelry hangers that kind of hold on to the coated chicken wire that I'm using, and I'm creating a fabric, basically, from marine plastics that have been picked up off the beach, mylar balloons and ropes and fabrics and things like that that are cut into strips is currently at the Parrish Art Museum in like the education section, with a show, with artists that are addressing ecological, issues in Long Island Island.

And I'm one of the artists. So they're allowing me to put the loom up to get community members to come in and weave. So we got these two big boxes of ropes and mylar balloons and all these strips and everything, and people come in and they weave on it. So we're creating fabric, right? That's probably like I was like, oh, I love the idea of creating fabric.

But you guys, this fabric is not like it's not like that. It's like coated chicken wire with like, ropes and all kinds of crazy stuff. And it's great because as people of all ages and the kids are down at the bottom, they can't get up high. You can see that they're like, they do it. This all loopy and this all crazy.

And this is really interesting. What's happening? And, I'm asking people to send me like five words of what they to describe the ocean today and to send selfies of them working on it. And this is just the beginning. The loom is going to go to a couple of other venues this summer. And then, also it's going to end up, going into New York for, climate, for the Climate Week.

And so it's going to move around, collecting it to do a very large sculpture. So it's ongoing and that's what I'm doing. So thanks for bringing that up. Yeah. Yeah, it's really fun and everybody loves doing that. Everybody can do it. You know. It's not anybody can do it. It's it's it's fun. Yeah.

That's funny I have a weaving project going on at the Katonah Library

our way here.

From here. Oh, good. Yeah, yeah, we're weaving single use plastic into a I think it's a rabbit netting or something like that. Yeah. So yeah. Outside and the strips are there and people are. They're doing it right. They're doing it. Yeah. That's really what is wild. So this is a question for and I don't it's not to do with plastic pollution, but your seed project sounds incredible.

Can you tell us about it? Thanks. Yeah. So it's called the next Epoch Seed Library. And, Ellie, who lives in Troy, by the way? We've been doing it for 11 years now, and it's a seed library for wild urban plants. So like this, and we're specifically interested in plants that are growing, like, in a self seeded way in sites that have been impacted by humans.

So cities, definitely, but also like Superfund sites or traffic median or, former agricultural fields. And yeah, I mean, we typically for an exhibition will make a special collection from the vicinity of wherever the gallery is, and we'll put it into little seed packets and made to make the seed packets available for people to take.

And we also sometimes do workshops or walks. We have, some curriculum materials and, available on our website. We have seen zines and pamphlets and stuff. And yeah, I mean, we're kind of like the the climate is changing and there's kind of no going back that and these plants can be really useful, and provide a lot of ecosystem services in cities, especially in areas where there's no other green space.

Like they still even if they're not, you know, your ideal native plants or whatever, they still absorb stormwater and, create oxygen and filter the air and, you know, absorb heavy metals and all this important stuff. And so we're also interested in kind of like talking through this native invasive binary. Yeah. It's you're asking.

Yeah.

That's wonderful. Yeah. Very complicated. Yes. So

question is what is what inspired you to start using trash and marine debris and then and then explain what that was like? There are a few other things before, but the next question is it sounds like you're very knowledgeable knowledgeable about the science aspect to this. You're talking about microplastics and the, the culture here.

Where do you get your science information from?

I think I became interested in using found materials, in my first sculpture class in college. It was kind of organized around different materials. There was like cardboard and wire and there was plaster and there was wood. And then the last one was, materials. And I really enjoyed that one. So it kind of like launched me.

And let's see, what was the second part of your question? Oh, where did you get the science from? I think that, you know, I just research stuff online or it's read books, talk to other people. Yeah.

So. Right. So, I grew up in a household that repurposed everything. My grandparents were missionaries from China, and my mother was raised in that way. She was very, And we spent our summers in Cape Cod and my grandparents house, and it was, very basic.

And we used everything. Baby jars, hold screws. It was that's how people did things. But, you know, we really probably to the extreme and, we saved water because the septic system was always full, so you couldn't waste water. So I grew up from the time I could walk, really saving things and repurposing things. And, I think that that was a huge, huge influence on me.

And I could when I see things, I see things I can make out of them. It's a very natural thing for me. When I look at something, I go, oh, I can, you know, I can, I can see how I can repurpose interviews. It and then, secondly, sorry, I'm like, I serve the other side's science.

You know, when I first started, finding the plastics, I went, and researched somebody who knew something about it, and I went, and, I found Rachel Miller of the Rosalind Project, and she was doing a talk. You guys probably. Do you know about her? So. Yeah. And she was giving a talk at the Mystic Seaport.

I went over there and I listened to her, and then I suggested that she should have an artist on board her boat for artist in residence on board the boat. And I did that. I went on her boat and, for about three days, and I really got an education, a huge education. She's a scientist. There were books on board that I read, all kinds of things.

And also, there's a, another nonprofit called five gyres. And five gyres is a very strong science based, about about marine plastics. And I and I was very much involved with them. I did a project with them, a couple of projects with them. So that's it. Boots on the ground, getting to know people, talking to scientists, but also a tremendous amount of reading and studying and.

Yeah.

I can totally relate to your story because I grew up in the Soviet Union and, you know, you know, waste and you know, nothing because there isn't anything to waste. But I have to give a plug to be on plastics for education, on single use plastic, because I have taken I think there might be some members here who have taken the Judith's class from Bennington College online.

It's mind blowing. Yeah. Why don't you teach us that? So I suggest everybody audit that class. It's good.

I might have listened to this, because we came in with that name. But do you ever go with schools or for people who aren't artists? Especially for kids, you scheme to teach beauty and school, how to to do this

seems like.

Yes. And,

yes. So, we, we, as Upsculpt the, nonprofit that I founded. The big part of that is to going into school systems and, and to be able to and we've done workshops now. We've changed over the years and most recently just because of funding and that sort of thing. We have virtual.

So you can actually you can bring us in virtually to, talk about it and then also to do a demonstration. So all of that is on the website of sculpt.com. And you can go on there and you can reach us by just sending us an email. And Brianna Sanders is the director of public outreach and education.

And she will get right back to you. And I see everything that's going on. And we we we go into museums, we go into schools, and we do it virtually. So it's affordable. We just did a series of workshops, for the Change Makers program, which down in Brazil. So we we've done stuff internationally as well. Okay.

We do Girl Scouts, we do Boy Scouts, we do it. But the whole idea is to educate people, get their hands on it, working on it. So that's that's a big part of it. And it all goes back to sculpt. All of the funding goes entirely into the 501 C3. Okay.

Thank you. Do you do any teaching in.

No, but I've done like one off workshops. Yeah. I think a lot of artists, myself included, do I have a monster on my hands now? We do school workshops and community workshops. Many of us do libraries. Yeah. Library has a big exhibit. And.

We take the stuff you find is residual from past of things. Or is it like new

stuff? Oh, I love this question. Yeah, it's a great question. Where does it come from. Right. Yeah. Well, you know, I was just wondering, we all know storms churn things up and. Right. Well, well, okay, here's, here's, here's the quick skinny on plastics in the ocean and particularly where I live, which is on Long Island and, on Long Island, which is that Long Island Sound in between us.

Right. And Connecticut and Connecticut's got a lot of, waterways, big rivers that come down and dump in there. But the whole eastern seaboard, if you think about it, has a lot of rivers, a lot of different things that come into the eastern seaboard and the plastics. What happens is plastic can travel over a hundred miles on the land.

So if you if you open up, if you got a I always like to use this example. You've got a to go coffee cup and the plastic lid flies off and you're in Hartford right. That plastic lid can actually make its way down into Long Island Sound. And in the wintertime, when the wind blows out of the north, in the northwest, those and these, these plastics are now in a current in a stream just going in.

And the tides go in and the tides go out. It can actually get blown out to my shoreline. And we have a lot of plastics. So to answer your question, a lot of it comes from at least locally, it's coming from the land but is coming from much farther away than you might think. And it's making its way into the Essex River.

It's making its way into these different rivers. And then they it comes down and it gets into these currents, and it could travel a long time in these currents. You might you might not even see it. Plastics can travel at different in different depths depending on their weight, their color, what kind of plastics they are. And they can degrade at different times.

So I does that help answer your question? I'm just curious if

if they're still allowing ocean dumping in this country,

I think that they would. If it's happening, no one's going to say, yeah, we're ocean dumping. I don't think it is. No. It's landfill. No. But a lot of the plastics in the oceans really, I mean, are coming from the land, but also in Asia, like India has huge issues.

There's massive rivers, that, that come in and it gets in, you know, once it's in the currents, it goes around the world. I mean, we don't really necessarily see a lot of stuff from Japan to, you know, washing up on our shorelines here. But it's possible.

But my wife's an environmentally conscious artist. We were on the beach in Florida in the morning after a storm.

She picked it up. Over 300 water bottle caps, the caps? Yeah. The seaweed that scoured. Yeah, the bottle caps into to the shore. And I'm thinking, where the heck is that coming from? Yeah,

yeah. I mean, I have that question a lot too. Sometimes when I see a flood of, to be honest with you, tampons that wash up on the beach and you're like, where is this coming from?

You know, some kind of septic thing has overflown, over overflowed

a lot of a lot of cities have the combined sewer and something. So storm drains. Yeah, yeah. So when there's a big storm,

it doesn't say separate. It goes together just into the

into the ocean or river or whatever. You know, storm drains are huge.

I have a question or comment or a concern, and I always think of that, I work on a small scale, and I so admire these large, large projects and large installations.

And I think it's so incredible that where as artists raising awareness and utilizing all this material. But then I also think about what's happening to all that material after we've created with it. You know, I also think about like just my little studio stuff a little bit and all my bins and jars of plastic and, I mean, I'm not going to live forever, so I'm going to end up in my home and what's going to happen to all that stuff.

And yeah, so sometimes I feel like, a cross between a, I feel really good about working with this material, but at the same time, I just wonder, what ultimately will happen to all of these things once they're either just remade in in bins? Because I have to not going to be able to get it all usable.

Or two projects, really wonderful art projects and installations and things. But ultimately, you know, the you're not going to find a home for them endlessly. And what happens to all that material?

I mean, it's no worse than what would have happened if you hadn't been there, and then maybe you would be making art, like out of oil paint or, you know, so acrylic is made out of plastic, but that, that would be, newly made and,

well, is it something you think about or is it just me?

Yeah. I mean, sure, like, it's like, I think I'm just what I'm making is just part of its lifecycle. Yeah. You know, I'm not going to. Maybe I'll delay it getting to a landfill or whatever, but I'm not going to stop it from getting there. Right. So that's you kind of extending it. Yeah. That's why you know, that slogan reduce it's before reuse.

So, you know,

I'm sure we object to try to reduce where we can. Yeah I think it has. Yeah. She said it I mean, yeah,

you know, I think what you're doing is you're, I look at the education as high value. Yeah. So I think that you're, it's, you're not just repurposing and extending your actually there's high value.

And in doing the work and and talking about it with people. So showing it talking about it what is it made out of it. These are the materials that all of my sculptures come with. I didn't mention this. All of my sculptures, the large ones, the public ones, and even the smaller ones. I've always done the the tag, but the larger ones you have like signs and the materials are completely listed in what is this made out of?

So when you see the great white shark, you're going to see a sign that says all of the materials that are in there so that you get it. Like that's the education. Like, oh my God, that's it. And then I did a piece one time called pieces, you know, pieces of you much to do about something, pieces of you.

And it was all of these. That's some big installation. But the idea is to educate that this is this is, this is so that you can see like, oh my God, that's a disposable lighter like previous was. Maybe I need to think about, you know, getting some matches. What Mark you know, I don't know how it's going to affect somebody, but it's bringing it forward.

And I think there's a lot of value in how I see great value. Yeah. I'm just looking beyond that. Yeah. No, I think I think it's hard until somebody comes up and, you know, till till we figure out something, you know, hope and pray that, you know, there's going to be a better solution somehow. For me, it's very hard right now.

I think it's just your sign petitions trying to slow slow down. Yeah. Okay. So

so I have a health question. Do you consider your own health as you're working with materials that your medium.

Yes. And. Yeah. And more so now than ever. And do you do anything? I wear a mask and I wear a respirator when I need to. And I wear, you know, earmuffs or something like that, but, obviously, like any. How many artists are in here? Yeah. I mean, do you really want to have to wear a mask all day in your studio?

It's really a drag. So, I, I do it when I know, you know, I do use, like, a bandsaw with the plastics. I do do things that create a lot. And also just working with these old ropes, and you bring them up there, they're fraying. So, my husband's back there going. She's worried about her health. I had my chest X-ray recently just to make sure that,

Yeah, I keep an eye on it because it was. I was so happy. But, you know, I mean, I'm three. I've been breathing. I have been doing this for 15 years. And part of the reason is to make people aware of the fact that this stuff is really bad for you. So, Yeah, I'm I'm concerned and I'm aware and I do the best I can.

I wear gloves too, by the way, and I hate, I hate the fact that I'm using these disposable gloves. But again, I need to protect myself when I'm working so I don't use them. I do definitely with oil paints I do that, but with the plastics is kind of yeah, sometimes it's hard to wear those gloves. I want to throw my fingers in.

Yeah, yeah. So anyhow,

yeah, how about you do protect yourself? I mean, not really. I mean, lately I haven't been just working with plastic, though. Like, it's a lot of paper and cardboard and stuff. So it's not really the same issue, but read emails, probably email, YouTube. At least I try out disposable gloves that I think are biodegradable.

Yeah. No I didn't hear about that and that's great. Yeah I love I love that I have to look for that and you know share that with. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. We got to do what we can right. Because we have to keep doing that. So that's stopping now. Do you love the materials that you're working with?

Yes, I love that.

Yes, I love that for me too.

And you have a support group.

My first step is you have you guys that you love the ways. Okay. Exactly. Yeah. It's true. People are like, oh my God, how can you? I, I know I could because I love it. Yeah, yeah. It's so fun to transform it. Yeah. I think that's like it's very rewarding to transform. But yeah, it's so funny because I have I don't know if you guys have had this experience, but people have come to my studio like, you know, I, I get your work, but I just don't like I put one in my house and, you know, that's like garbage and I know.

Okay, you have to put it in your house. It's. But it is funny how people are, like, really like me, you know? Yeah. Right. Do you get that? I haven't said it to you. I haven't gotten that. But when you said that, I just thought, like, gotten with, like, right on my face, like 3 or 4 people have actually, like, said it right to my face and I'm like, wow.

But like, you know, in their in their happily in everybody's house, we all use like lots of plastic. Yeah. You know what I mean. So it's like, I don't know what it's really disconnects. I know, you know, I didn't come in because I was in the Italian. So I watched. Yeah, yeah. And you watch it anyway. Yeah.

Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's some sort of stigma. Is a stigma encouraged here. Yeah it is. Yeah.

Well, working with all this material. Have you, has your, have your homes become much less relying on glass. Yeah. Significant change for them.

Yeah. I mean I try to just like

make like one swap every so often, you know, like something that I use on a regular basis, you know, I mean, I'm sure a lot of people do like to.

Yeah, I definitely when I go shopping, I buy something that has the least amount of packaging, at least that. Yeah. And not putting your food in plastic. Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah definitely. Well my great hats is wax paper and rubber bands and so I've, I've, we used to do that growing up. So wax paper over a bowl or anything and you just you had a big thing of rubber bands and that's your Saran wrap.

You don't have to have, you know, and saving glass jars from everything. Oh yes. And everywhere. Yeah. Do we have any other questions from the audience?

Yes. What is the most common? You might have said this earlier, really the most common, like materials that you use and especially like the plastic, but other ones too.

And materials are rather varied. Yeah, they rather varied. Yeah. I use a lot of ropes. I use a lot of ropes. I use a lot of different kinds of plastic. So too. So yeah.

What are the most common ones that people bring to you of classes?

Oh, okay. That's I think, you know, I think I think that, worldwide, to answer your question, shoes, you know, shoes and the tobacco in a cigarette, the inside of the cigarette, the filter.

That's a plastic. Yeah. So those are actually two things you may not think about that are one of the top ten pieces of plastics, kind of kinds of plastics that wash up on the beach. Yeah, they get picked up. But shoes are a huge one. You know those Crocs, those flip flops, those jellies, all of that stuff. Yeah.

And then and and then sneakers and then tennis shoes. I get a lot of those. And I get a lot of those in Long Island. Yeah, a lot of them. I don't use that. I do use pieces of them. But it's you'll see that shark usually have a Nike sneaker right there for me as a check. If it was a child's Nike sneaker, they took it apart and that's that.

That's the actual snout is the Nike speaker. And I've got those two things going like that so you can see it. I like to show the logos if I can get really nice and if it's not too if it's not true dominant, you know, I won't get too I'm too small to suit me. So I kind of like all of that sculpture go, yeah, I do like to try and show it.

That's what I like about the sachets, too. Yeah, I don't use that that much. Which I do. I can't collect enough because you have to go to the Philippines or something like that. Or India. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah, yeah, I, I knew that statistic about the cigarette butts. I'm still waiting to find that artist who's really using those.

Yeah. You know, I heard today that birds are putting cigarette butts in their nest in a release, and they're very smart to do so because it deters pests. Oh. Oh, yeah. I read that like an audible had that. It's a nicotine. And the smell, hum.

And an entomologist told me that bees have started taking plastic and smashing them up, you know, chewing them up in them in there.

Now. And that's because it's waterproof. Yeah. Same. I mean, like the same reason we have vinyl siding, I guess. Yeah, but it doesn't breathe. Doesn't, you know, I know, I know, and you were in there. Nicotine is poisonous. Also explains pesticide. You know it. It's a curious pest. They wonder what happens. Oh, gosh, I know

this is not a not the bees.

All right. How come in this on a positive note,

How do we try to.

Yes. You're doing great work. And thank you all. Very inspired. You. Thank you, thank you. Thank you both, both of you, for coming here today. I love talking with you. Thank you for inviting me. And thank you. Beyond plastics. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

So, everyone take a look around at the art. It's all made for repurposed materials. It's the Repurposer collective. And two of our artists are here. So take a look. Enjoy the art pieces. Thank you.

This episode was brought to you by the Repurposer collective with collaboration by Beyond Plastics.

Even though Repurposer collective artists are not only using single use plastics. It is important for us to fight single use plastic pollution, which is a major contributor to climate change. Join Beyond plastics with us and support their actions to change the laws that will protect us all.

Thank you.

Hope you enjoyed our conversation. We had a great time talking and stay tuned for the next episode. Thanks for being here.

This podcast was created, produced and edited by me, Natalya Khorover. Theme music by RC Guida. To find out more about me, go to art by natalya.com to find out about my community. Go to Repurposer collective.com and to learn with me. Check out all my offerings at EcoLoop, Dot Art. Thank you for listening.