Sea of Plastic Debris (Rory Baker, English 101, Garrett, 12-02-2015)

Sea of Plastic Debris

I participated in the Heal the Bay beach clean up and used the trash I picked up to create an art project about plastic pollution. I painted a view from the ocean looking at a city, as if the audience is on a boat look back at land, and I incorporated blue or green trash that I found and glued it to the ocean. I then glued sand on the shore, and cigarettes as a cityscape in the background. Most of the trash in the piece's ocean is plastic as a representation of the amount of plastic trash floating around in our oceans.

When people see my piece, I want them to reflect on the amount that they litter. The beach is a place full of nature that should not be filled with dirty and toxic items. If people don't stop littering, marine pollution will only get worse, especially with rising populations. I don't want the audience to feel guilty by looking at my piece, but I want them to feel the need to improve. I want my artwork to be a message to the audience pleading them to stop polluting our oceans. No matter who sees this, there is time to change and help our environment.

Plastic pollution in the ocean is a huge problem. It hurts so many animals in the ocean--animals of all kinds. Many birds and marine animals mistake colorful pieces for food and end up with plastic poisoning. It does not matter how much the audience cares about the ocean and its inhabitants (although they really should), they should know how it affects them too. When humans consume the sea animals that have already consumed plastic, the person is consuming that plastic as well. Plastic is non-biodegradable, which means that it is impossible to naturally break down. That means it will not disappear if a human eats it, it will stay within them and could have severe effects.

My art project is a reminder to those who see it not to litter. Whether or not they are near the beach, littering is a problem. It always ends up back in the nearest body of water, which leads into other waterways and eventually all over the world. Plastic pollution (and pollution in general) is a huge problem, and I want my art project to spark change within those who see it to stop littering and take action to stop any more plastic from entering the ocean.

Heal the Bay Art Project Written Component - Alexis Kam

Alexis Kam

Professor Garrett

ENGL 101

December 2, 2015

A Polluting Earth

          Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable illness and death in the United States, but most people don’t know that. Smoking causes various cancers and chronic lung diseases like emphysema and bronchitis, heart disease, and pregnancy-related issues (Tobacco Facts). On October 18, 2015, I went with a group of students from my English 101 class to pick up trash at a Heal the Bay cleanup event on Dockweiler beach. When we picked up a total of 992 cigarette butts on a public beach, I was shocked to realize how many cigarettes we found even though smoking is prohibited on state beaches. Within the next few weeks, I collected a bunch of used cigarettes off of the ground that I found on campus right next to one of the buildings even though it is prohibited to smoke within 25 feet of a building (University Smoking Policy). 

  I glued used cigarette butts to a piece of paper in the form of a tree trunk and then drew smoke to replace the branches on a tree. My art symbolizes how cigarettes emit pollutants that fill the earth with toxins. Trees “remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere [to] store it as wood fiber” and then they convert that carbon dioxide into oxygen which is released back into the atmosphere and breathed in by humans (Oxygen Generation). I also chose to have my art resemble a tree because cigarettes generate toxic smoke which is then inhaled by humans, just like how we breathe in the oxygen created by plants.
Through this project, I want to help students become aware of tobacco and why it is harmful.  Most students don’t know the effects of smoking on their health and don’t know that it affects the other students around them and the environment. Smoking emits numerous hazardous pollutants like nicotine, which is very sticky and will be absorbed by clothes and then later released with the effects of tobacco still present. Not only does smoking affect the smoker’s health, it also affect the environment by “resulting into air, water and land pollution” because many people litter cigarettes on the ground. In addition, one tree is wasted for every 300 cigarettes and the chemical waste from manufacturing cigarettes is dumped into the soil (How Smoking Affects the Environment). Students need to become aware of the severe effects of smoking that damages their own health, other’s health, and ultimately the earth. 

Works Cited

"How Smoking Affects the Environment." Ygoy. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2015.

"Tobacco Facts and Figures." Be Tobacco Free. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2015.

"University Smoking Policy." (2007): Administrative Law & Procedure. Web. 1 Dec. 2015.

"Oxygen Generation by Planting a Tree or Having a Tree Planted." Million Forestry Service. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2015.

                                       
           I completed the community engagement art project with trash I collected from my house over the past few weeks. I decided to focus on the issue of homelessness in Los Angeles and America. Statistically, roughly two-thirds of Americans live paycheck to paycheck (Gamm 2014). For some of these people, if an unfortunate turn of events takes place, for instance loosing their job, they may end up on the street, homeless. They may be unable to purchase essentials such as food for themselves and could begin to go hungry. To represent this dire situation, I created an art piece featuring a homeless woman made entirely out of different materials that were once a product filled with food but have since been emptied. In the piece, she is part of a homeless community using tents and clothes lines. This reality is on display for the public to see 24/7 on the sides of some Los Angeles streets or at on-ramps to freeways. Although my representation may seem extreme, this is the nature of their situation and must not be a topic that is avoided by those who can help.
     The intention of my art piece is to raise awareness about the frequency and severity of homelessness, particularly in Los Angeles. When constructing the homeless woman, I began by creating a structured and clean dress and then cut it until it looked sufficiently tattered. I wanted my piece to illustrate the fleeting nature of stability, as this woman, dressed in attire that could be a party dress, is now on the streets in what possibly was a quite sudden turn of events. The surrounding environment of the woman in my art piece was also intentional. I placed her on the side of the road in what appears to be a small community of people suffering through homelessness. I decided that this would be an effective way to portray my intentions, being that my concern addresses more than the lifestyle of homelessness and how it can become one’s reality in such a short period of time; my concerns are largely surrounding the severity and percentage of the population struggling through that potential situation. My goal was to demonstrate this through my art piece, as the featured character is a part of a homeless community mimicking the look of places like Skid Roe in Los Angeles. As pointed out in an article in “Marketplace” entitled “In Los Angeles, homeless camps are suddenly everywhere”. These places exist and are filled with people who have recently encountered a rough set of circumstances in their life. The article points out that the number of homeless in LA county rose 12% in the past two years with the population of homeless now reaching 44,000 (Tyler, 2015). Support from those who can provide it is what allows these people another chance at life by getting them back on their feet with a fighting chance.
    The intended audience for this piece was anyone who is able to help those in need. My goal was for the viewer to see my art and feel inspired to help this person all at once seemingly both similar and apart from themselves. There are so many different ways in which people can help support those who are suffering through homelessness. Organizations such as PATH, People Assisting The Homeless, house and feed homeless and work to get them back into jobs where they can support themselves. But even people who aren’t part of organizations can still help the homeless in whatever small ways they can. Whether one is giving a beggar money or food, donating clothing to a charity, or creating an art piece to inspire others, every act counts and impacts the life of someone in need.


Work Cited

Gamm, Scott. "Two-Thirds of Americans Are Living Paycheck to Paycheck, A 1% Drop From Last Year." MainStreet. The Street Inc., 29 Sept. 2014. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.

Tyler, Jeff. "In Los Angeles, Homeless Camps Are Suddenly Everywhere." Marketplace Wealth and Poverty. 28 May 2015. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.

Jaime Venegas Heal the Bay Art Project for professor Laura Garrett English 101

During Heal the Bay clean up I took over the top area by the road. No one  seemed interested in walking up the stairs but I didn't mind. During my little journey in collecting trash that is being littered daily in the surrounding of our beaches I happen to find a lot of plastic bottles and chip wrappers along the road. With that being said I used plastic bottles to do my project. I did a car because today cars are overpopulated and there is more cars than people. Every thing that is being release though the exhaust its going into the air we breath. I did the car of plastic bottles because after the project i could go head and recycle and make some money. People have to understand that there is families out there that they live by recycling plastic bottles.If you think about you're throwing money into the trash. Lets Just try to keep our beaches more pleasant and throw the trash in the proper place. If everyone throws there own trash away are beaches would be much more cleaner. Don't use nature as a dumpster!

Art project-The model of mountain

The model of mountain forest

My art project is a mountain forest model. My purpose of making a mountain forest model was trying to let the people who live in the city to touch the nature in the mountain.The trash I use in this model is the carton, plastic bags, and the sand and rock. Also, I bought the lime and grass powder from the store and use it as the model’s material. First, I use the carton as my model container. Then I fill up the cartons with the plastic bags and some papers, and I molded the plastic bags into a mountain shape. Next, I pricked up the plastic bags with a with a coat lime. After the lime dried, I put the grass powder, rocks and sand on the model, and make it looks like a real mountain. That is the structure of my model.

I like to hike, every time when I am tired of work, I always go hiking. I feel relax when I was hiking in the mountain, I could see the green plant anywhere instead of seeing the building anywhere in the city. I could hear the birds is singing instead of hear the truck is rolling in the city. I could smell the fresh air instead of smell the car’s exhaust gas in the city. So I make the model of a mountain, I want the people who saw my model will go touch the nature in the mountain. I want them to start like to hiking and start to love the nature of the mountain.

Art Project and Community Engagement. Bowen He-English 101 Professor Laura Garrett

Art Project—“Ultron of cans”

In order to do this project, I collected trash during the Heal the Bay beach clean-up. My artwork is based on the villain—“Ultron” in the movie “Avengers II”. Ultron plays a dangerous role in the movie, he want to create a new world but he can’t tell the difference between destroying the world and creating a new world so he becomes a bad actor in the movie, and I think it is a good position to inspiring people.

I made this artwork for inspiring teenagers. I always see some students drop the cans when they left, and that’s one of the main resources of cans in the ocean. Making this artwork as this figure aims to attracting their attention because teenagers love these things thus I can tell the concept of it. Teenagers are a great part of the community, and their behavior will affect our future. If we can help them to have a positive attitude towards environment, we can save much more creatures in the nature.

My artwork mostly includes cans because can is one of the most common trash found in the ocean, and ii also fill some tinfoil that found in the beach. Nowadays, can is one of the most common production people need; there trillions of cans produced in a year in America, and there are almost 40% of them will be left into ocean. The uncollected cans are a dangerous factor to the ocean as well as Ultron to the world in the movie. As human developing, people create lots of waste to nature every day. Human will face many surviving harsh conditions if we keep creating too much waste without recycling. Let’s start to protect our environment; we can pick up every aluminum can, plastic pieces and bags. Those trashes are harmful toward nature but we can collect them for recycling.

Natalie Montelongo

April 27,2015

English-101

Professor Ragana

Trash In Our Food?

            What I want people to see from my art project is that all the trash we throw and that ends up in our oceans fish eat. We as humans eat those fish, so we are pretty much eating trash as well. We need to help all the animals because most of them are dying because they eat plastic objects or get trapped in them and die. It is sad to see that we can go fishing because fish we catch, if we cut open their stomach we will find some type of plastic item. What I tried to create was the ocean and someone fishing. I cut open the shark and put all sorts of plastic items I could find. I also put a cigarette butt because I found a lot of those on the beach. On the sand I also put different plastic items, a cigarette butt, and a “plastic bag”. All of the trash I found was from my neighborhood and home. It makes me sad to think that when it rains all this trash is washed up and sent to the ocean. So please help keep our oceans and beaches clean, not only for the animals but for us as well.  

The purpose of my trash art project is to show that we live in a beautiful city called Los Angeles and we have to keep it clean because if we don’t all the trash ends up in the ocean. Everything that ends up in the ocean is from our city and people don’t realize how we throw trash everywhere and don’t know where it ends up. The reason it’s bad is because all the trash ends up in the ocean and the animals suffer. If the animals suffer then we suffer because we eat animals from the sea: they eat the plastic and we eat them. My main point is that we should keep our cities clean so we can live a longer life and help the animals in the ocean.

Lostrashgeles

This a belt made from yarn and aluminum bottle caps. This is something important I made because I am using stuff that I recycle to make something I would wear. I prevented the yarn and aluminum tops from landing on streets and beaches and saving a animal life.

Capturing Moments

Recycle/Trash Sign

Well I chose to do a "throw away your trash" sign because it was very simple and it was straight forward. I see it in the streets and it is just simply disgusting that we live in a city full of trash. I did the recycle sign because we should recycle and even doing something as simple as recycling we can actually even get paid for doing it. When we throw away our trash on the floor, it goes to OUR beaches and sea animals die because they eat the plastic or get stuck in the plastic.

The Empty Trash Can

Lady Trash The title of my art project is “Lady Trash,” which shows a lady wearing a dress that was made out of trashes that I picked up around my neighborhood. All people like beautiful clothings, including myself; however, many people ignored that fact that the materials that were used to make our clothings can be very harmful to the environment. The process of producing clothing can also affect the environment because it waste a lot of water. I used the color red to fill the background because I wanted to show my angers toward environmental issues that we had created and people’s ignorance toward these issues. I encourage people to recycle,not only clothing, because “trash” can be use to create new things and can also be use to create arts. It is important to protect the environment that we live in because it is our home.

Art Project

"What you leave behind from the night you don't remember/ but your beach does"

More To The Eye Can See

A box that is to display the ocean that people see. In reality everything they are not seeing is how plastic and trash inside the ocean is not going away. The miniature entrance on the side lets people see what they are putting into their own waters.

"Reality" is the picture above with a black and white effect, making the trash on the sand standout. This is the reality of our beaches, they have all these ridiculous pieces of trash affecting the environment and the animals at the beach. 

The picture above is named "Imagination", it is named imagination because it was drawn based on what people think of when they hear the word beach or ocean. This is the type of beach we want, but unfortunately we do not converse it and rather looks like the drawing "Reality".