Diseased Turtle

My art project is a diseased turtle that I found while participating in the Peck Road Water Conservation Park clean-up. I found the turtle shell along the shoreline of the little lake where we were cleaning up. I created the head of turtle with a piece of styrofoam that I had also found and picked up while cleaning. Inside the shell I put the rest of the trash that I found that could have potentially killed the turtle in the first place. Those items include fishing line, a hot cheetos bag, a snickers wrapper, an unidentified candy wrapper, two water bottle caps, five cigarette buds, a drinking straw, two pieces of plastic, three pieces of styrofoam, and a fishing bobber. 

During the clean up I found it very disappointing and disgusting of the amount of trash that was at the park, and what we had to clean up. I decided to use the idea of a dead turtle because it’s important for everyone to be disposing trash the right way, not just on the ground because wildlife pick up and eat that trash and kills them. I can’t help but think whatever animal would have eaten the turtle would probably died next and so on and so forth. And eventually the trash we put on the ground will end up in our bodies next. Pollution messes with the ecosystem which is not okay. If we start small, by picking up trash and recycling, we can and will make a huge difference in our environment. Even after the clean-up, we all looked back at the area we spent two hours o cleaning up and we noticed a huge difference. It was a big step in the right direction for Peck Road and I know if we do the same thing in our own communities it’ll make a huge difference just for the community and city but the whole state, country, and world.

Community Engagement + Art Project: Dia de los Muertos skull

For my art project, I collected pieces of trash from the Peck Road Water Conservation Clean Up that I participated in. From the many items of trash collected, the most interesting ones I came across were a canine skull and turtle shell. The one that I decided to make into a form of art is the canine skull. I painted over the skull and make it into a  Dia de Los Muertos skull, which means “The Day of the Dead”. The reason I came up with this is because this day is very special and big celebration that happens every year which is meant to honor the day of the dead. My message is to honor the canine who has died because it’s very sad to see this and may have suffered a horrible death. It is sad to see the skull of this beloved canine. Although the decaying of bones is beneficial to the Earth, it should not have been by big areas of trash. By seeing all the pieces of trash that were by the water was very unpleasant to see and made me really want to fix this issue that is going on in the world

with pollution. It really does affect not just us but also innocent animals.

            I wanted and planned to make this skull come to life and that is the purpose I plan to intend so that it can look beautiful again. The effect I hope to get on the audience is to bring out the life in this once beautiful creature and how animals are so beautiful to keep in this world. Who knows how long this skull has been down there where we did the clean up, day after day. I would like to paint it the way that the make up is done on Dia de Los Muertos and hope to make it look spectacular. My purpose is to make this canine skull have another chance and that is why I chose this specific day which is honoring the dead.

Peace

I participated in the Peck Road Watershed Park clean up. I was shock when I got to the area that we needed to clean up because I have never expected to see that much trash there. We picked up all kinds of trash there and most of it is plastic and glass. Although a few people found some interesting fossils there. My friends and I picked up a full bag of trash and I collected a glass bottle to try to turn it into art. I clean the glass bottle that I collected from the park, then I did some research online to see how other people turned trash into art. Many of the arts are very creative but I didn’t find any of it that I like. I want to make my art more meaningful and try to fit a story into this piece of art. I turned a glass bottle into art by painting it and I also did some drawing on it. The massage of my art is to give everyone an idea that we often can turn something we consider trash into art. We often tell stories in writings, but stories can also be told in a more meaningful way by using color, line, and symbol on paper or bottles. The intended effect of this art is to show people that something we consider trash is no longer trash and this visual art can be a decoration for many places. If we all keep this not dissolvable glass bottles, then it won’t end up in the ocean and kill thousands of animals or leave them with scars on their body. My audience are people that understand English. Although every one of us have threw glass bottles at least once but I hope people will start saving them from now on. Some people seem strong like a glass bottle on the outside but inside of them is very fragile just like glass. Also there are people who doesn’t have the freedom of expressing their love just like the petals of the cherry blossom that is carried away by the winds.

                                                            Love at First Sight

Recently my classmates and I helped clean up Dockweiler beach for Heal The Bay. At first I didn’t think that there would be a lot of trash but soon found out that I was wrong. My classmates and I collected a total of 1697 pieces of trash which majority of the trash included: cigarette butts, styrofoam pieces, plastic pieces, plastic wrappers, and plastic bottle caps/rings. I was surprised to find all that trash at the beach and more surprised that people can ignore the fact that our beaches are being destroyed by pollution. All that trash doesn’t just end up there by the people leaving it when they go to the beach but also by trash being washed up unto the shore. Trash ends up in the beach from storm drains that cities have or by the trash coming unto the shore from other rivers and places. Helping clean the beach made me realize that we need to do more to save our beaches and to help keep them clean.  

My art project is called Love at first sight. I named it this because the couple in the art are in love with each other, the man fell in love with the women's personal beauty. Now with the beach people automatically fall in love with its beauty. The message is that mother nature gave us beautiful beaches to fall in love with, to cherish and protect like we have women to cherish, protect, and love. We have to protect our beaches and keep them clean, to maintain its beauty that its offering us. I mainly used plastic bottle caps because that was one of the items that I mainly found as I cleaned the beach.  I used other items such as a kids toy because kids tend to leave toys behind, a plastic flower just because it was interesting such as the cautious tape, plastic bubble wrap, string, a spring wire, and a cardboard circle. My intent is for people to see how beauty can be everywhere such as nature or humans and so can the love for someone or something. In order to keep our beaches, nature, and the environment clean, we have to help fight pollution by doing something simple such as a clean up, restoring habitats, or just stopping people from throwing trash on the ground and harming our environment.

Plastic vs. Styrofoam

For the Community Engagement and Art Project I went to the Dockweiler Beach cleanup and to the Peck Road Park. At first I was really astonished by the view and the beauty of both the beach and the park looked. From far away it was very peaceful and relaxing. When starting the cleanup, the amount of trash that was found was not surprising. There was every kind of trash that could be imagined. At Peck Rd there was a lot of plastic bags, styrofoam, paper, cigarette rappers, plastic straws, household items, car parts and cigarette buds. They list just keeps going. The amount of pieces that we all found at Dockweiler Beach was 1,697; 917 being plastic related items and 156 being styrofoam items.

This probably isn’t a surprise because we all use plastic as an everyday need. Water bottles, soda bottles, containers, plastic candy wrappers, plastic bags, garden hose, toys, and also some of our household tubing. I live in an apartment with a two floor building in front and a two floor building in the back, our garages being the first floor. My siblings, my mother and I always clean up our front lawn once a week. We bought a trash can to put in front of our apartment to reduce the amount of trash that is left by some of our neighbors and random people. It has helped out somewhat but the trash is still appearing. My front yard used to be all green and grassy but now it’s just all dry dirt and dead weeds that grow

As much trash as I get at home, it doesn’t compare to the trash that I picked up at the Peck Road and Dockweiler trash pickup. In Dockweiler there was so many bags of chips, plastic bags, and beer bottles. Either plastic, aluminum or glass, they were all hidden in the bushes. I started organizing them from the trash I picked up to take them for my art project, and then others to recycling. Even though it’s very nasty having to grab each of the bottles, it’s better than seeing them swim with the fishes at the lake, the beach or in the ocean.

Styrofoam and plastic bottles are used in my art project because they are the main used material in the world which are contributing to landfill trash and other environmental harms. Animals can digest styrofoam and it’ll clough up their digestive tracts which then can lead to starvation and eventually death. Plastic bottles are very hard to dispose of, when burned in a landfill they don’t breakdown the same as how some other materials breakdown. Each of these items has there advantages. For example styrofoam cups being the more expensive but can help when serving a cold or hot drink. Plastic cups being cheaper then Styrofoam but can’t compare to styrofoam’s reliability. So what I ask of everyone is to use reusable items instead of plastic bags or plastic containers. Also with Styrofoam items, there are different materials that we can substitute them for. Metal containers, ceramic wear, stainless steel or paper plates. My intended affect is to show what our beautiful beaches and parks are being overrun by, things can change and most of the time change is good. 

Community Engagment + Art Project: Cacoon Transformation

Community Engagement + art Project: Cacoon Transformation

On April 16, 2016 there was a community engagement at Peck Road Watershed Park. The community engagement objective for the assignment was to help nature by taking away trash that has surfaced up or trash people have litter. We had to be at Peck Road Park at 9 and Kym Buzdygon will be there as well to give us further instructions. To add on, Kym had told us what we can and cannot collect. In addition, Kym gave us a piece of paper so we can have an estimation of what we have collected. After two hours cleaning up, the total amount of trash estimated and then calculated by Professor Garrett exceeded 1000. Thus saying, the people who litter or throw away trash does not have a lot of knowledge about where the trash goes other than it magically disappearing.

My art project is a cocoon. The cocoon consists of water bottle, cigarette, aluminum foil, straw, and candy wrapper. The water bottle is structure for trash to hold as the water bottle is underneath the aluminum foil. Cigarettes are wrapped around the aluminum foil to give a feeling as if it is big. Whereas candy wrapper and plastic are on the plastic bottle. The green straw beneath the water bottle was connected together and give off the impression for the straw to be connected to a branch. The other reason I choose the water bottle, cigarette, candy wrapper, and straw was we tend to see this in the ocean, at the park, and even on the streets. Also whenever I go outside of my house, I will always see the either of those. Sometimes those plastic and cigarettes accumulate as if nobody cares in my neighborhood. The aluminum foil is an object we tend to use for wrapping or cooking our food, afterward people throw it away. Even Jenny Price, author of Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in L.A., implied her way of seeing nature is that we all see nature differently such as the materials. However, we are all using nature or have been around it. So, my audience is to the people who live in California. The message I am trying to send out is the trash will only keep on accumulating if we do not change ourselves. Also, the intended effect on the audience should be the “change”. The cocoon symbolizes us as to what we will become once we come out of the cocoon. Please think about where the trash will head to. Every small step will lead to a bigger step. 

Bibliography

Price,Jenny. “Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in L.A.” Believer., April 2016. Web. 15 May 2016.            <http://www.believermag.com/issues/200604/?read=article_price>.

The Scarecrow

For this art project I had an idea to portray trash as “evil” and why not do that with making trash a supervillain in the DC’s comic Batman. My art project is scarecrow himself. I came up with the idea because I was watching Chris Nolan’s action-packed trilogy Batman, and a grand idea came to me to make the mask and gauntlet of the scarecrow. The idea came to me because of one main reason; I found the perfect burlap sack lying on the ground someone left for me to use.

            The materials I used for this project were very common to find on the street. The main component of my art project is several pieces of plastic. Plastic is honestly everywhere and people use it everywhere. In both my two pieces of plastic you can find plastic. For example, in the gauntlet shown the main body is made of a two-liter plastic bottle and on the outside are more 16-ounce water bottles around it. On the mask, you can easily find that the respirator is made of two plastic laundry tops.

            Okay, so let us get started with the building process. First, I took the burlap sack and cut it into pieces so it can have a definitive shape to it. I cut the mask into four sections: the front, two sides, and the top of the head. I then cut two identical holes and one large oval shaped hole to mimic two eyeballs and a mouth. After that, I took the excess of the burlap, cut two pieces out, colored it black, and placed them behind the eyeholes so people cannot see the person wearing the mask. I then took more of the excess and added texture to the mask so that it did not look flat. Finally, I added the last component to this mask. I painted the respirators gray and hot glued them to the sides of the mask.

For the gauntlet section of this project, I cut a two-liter soda bottle in half and rolled it to make it appear smaller. After that, I used duct tape I found lying around in my house and used a healthy amount of tape to cover it up. I then cut a styrofoam cup and put more duct tape around it to make a gray ring. After that, I slipped it on the foundation of the gauntlet to add texture. I also found some pieces of metal in my house and made them a nice addition to my gauntlet I then got three water bottles cut them in half as well and rolled them up to make tubes. After I assembled the gauntlet I spray painted the whole thing gray.

And there you have it! Two key components of the supervillain Scarecrow from the DC comics Batman. A supervillain to portray that trash is the route of all-evil. I honestly had a blast making this art project. It allowed me to have fun and get really creative with this project. Without the burlap sack, I found on the ground I would not be able to create this supervillain. Thank you to whoever left this on the ground. I would not have done it without you!

The Plastic Flowers

The art project that I created by using trash that I collected during the beach cleanup is called “Plastic Flowers”, and it was all made by plastic bottles. Plastic bottles were included in this art project, not only because this is something we picked up during beach cleanups, but also because this is the item that we use and throw away everyday. Plastic bottles are the representative of trash, because the 90 percent of the water and soda that we drink everyday are assembled by plastic bottles. At the same time, many of us do not have the sense of keeping the plastic bottles up for sale or to throw it into recycle bins after we finished with them. In this case, plastic bottles become one of the many trash that go into the ocean and ruin our environments. The message that I am trying to encode is that we can always turn something we consider as trash into artistic form of things with a little decoration and time. My audiences are residents of Los Angeles, because we live in the same environments. The intended effect is to inspire them to care more about the environments by first envisage the problem of trash.

Trash can appear very easily, and it always depends on our actions. As part of nature, we have the responsibility to help on solving this problem by changing our attitude. First, we can start by utilizing wasted materials. To keep in mind, trash can always be turn into something usable or just for decoration. This little step doesn’t only help on decreasing the number of trash, but also provides an opportunity for us to do something inspiration and fun after hours of hard works.