plastic is forever | Love in Time of Corona

November 27, 2011
by barbidoesmiami Leave a comment

Finding the Future on Lighthouse Beach…

The windmill at the Island School

“My career is really taking off here” was not something I expected to say seven years after I first walked the beaches off Eleuthera . When I first noticed the colored plastic bits in the surf line and was strangely attracted to their paradoxical existence, the color they added to the natural elements, the way many plastic shapes seemed to find organic companions and together created still-lives in the sand. Like the green flip flop perfectly aligned with matching green beach grass, a white bottle top buried in black seaweed paired with a round shell of the same color and texture, two golden seeds cozied up against the edge of nylon string as if they had agreed to meet there.

synergy

Seven years later I notice it still and still crawl the beaches hungry for more, for pieces I have neither found nor captured before.

I sat with my friend Maureen on her most perfect porch overlooking the long curve of Wyckee Beach. The sand and sea tinted vibrant pink by the early sunset.

Career and Eleuthera in one sentence, how’s that possible? I asked.

I had just returned from the Island School down in south Eleuthera, beyond Green Castle near the settlement of Deep Creek. The school takes juniors and gives them a mind, body, and spirit journey that takes them away from their traditional high school curriculum wherever they live.

Nadine, the art teacher, had invited me to teach a beach plastic workshop to 48 kids in the Fall semester.

But on the first day I taught a workshop at the Deep Creek Middle School which is affiliated with the Island School.

We started the day with a beach sweep at the Cotton Bay Club (Juan Tripp’s Eleuthera dream of more than half a century ago.) Its ruins hide just beyond the dune amongst the Casuarinas, gaping and crumbling fifties bungelows some with indestructible nylon drapes ghostly in the wind. Here we collected beach plastic that had been swept into the dune grass and beyond by hurricane Irene last August. Stories of the eye passing over the island twice still fresh on everybody’s lips.

It was a good time for harvesting beach plastic…

That evening Nadine showed the One Beach film to faculty and staff of the school, projected on a white wall in her apartment. The film, which is 24 minutes long, took about an hour. Five minutes of loading, five minutes of watching, everyone was used to slow connection, laid back, on island time.

I answered questions while waiting for buffering.

The next morning we had our first Island School workshop.

I love the intensity in the class room, everyone scavenging the piles and looking for ways to make beautiful from beach plastic, tentative at first, picking up a piece, feeling it, studying its color and shape, teaming it with another, then picking up the tools and shaping it, insisting that NO it’s not trash, it’s not orphaned, it is material.

Insisting that “Away” is right there, in their hands… claiming ownership.

(We did stop for 11.11.11.11, standing in a large circle counting down while one girls kept trying to peek out of the window to see if the end of the world was reaching the Bahamas.)

By the end of this workshop Nadine and I felt we were out of good beach plastic which was a perfect excuse to take my first trip to the famous Lighthouse Beach, where beyond the dune amongst Casuarina pine needles we found enough for many more earrings, bracelets, neck and other art pieces.

harvesting on Lighthouse Beach

The next morning was workshop #2, a second group of 24 students.

Afterwards a 16 year old girl wrote about her solo overnight camping experience and beach plastic on the school’s blog:

(It made me weep for it captures past, present, future and the possibility of change…)

by Cacique Claire

Sitting in my solo spot on one of the most beautiful beaches in existence it seemed that the world was perfect. That was until I turned around and saw the pile of trash behind me that had washed up on the beach from Hurricane Irene. In my time in this spot, I had picked up a tiny fraction of the trash and put it into a pile. But, what good was it in a pile? It was organized, and parts of my spot looked neater, but I had done nothing more than transfer the trash to another spot. For the next forty-eight hours I continued to try to pile the trash. I found funny little things including many bottles and a strange little dog toy in the shape of a bear. As I walked away on day three I looked back. Now my spot looked clean of trash, only I knew that behind the bushes was a large pile of garbage I had hidden, but it was there.

I have been thinking of this a lot lately, this whole idea of where our waste goes. The reality of it is that when we throw away our garbage and it disappears into a truck it still sticks around, forever. Our guest artist today Barbara de Vries talked about how when you buy a drink in a bottle we have this idea of just owning the liquid, but we need to own the plastic bottle as well and realize that it will never really go away. When I walked into Barbara’s workshop Saturday, I was astounded. Lining the walls were beautiful pieces of art, it wasn’t until Barbara began to explain her materials that I realized the earrings, necklaces, bracelets, shirts, rings and decorations were all made up completely of trash. Then Barbara explained that we would be working with the same plastics today to create art. She said that she had found all of the materials for today’s workshop from Lighthouse Beach, the same area where we had our solos. My mind flashed back to my pile of trash in my spot, and I had this strange feeling of relief. Finally, the junk would be put to use and be safe from washing back into the ocean. I went out to look at our options, and staring back at me was a blue and white dog toy, resembling a bear. She had discovered my pile of trash, and saved it. I watched, amazed as the trash was transformed into art. At the end of the day one of my friends had created a pair of earrings made from the handles of the dog toy. I realize now, this trash may never go away. But we can save it. We can transform it into something beautiful, and continue to educate about keeping our beaches clean. This experience forever changed the way I look at plastic and ‘garbage’. Instead of feeling guilty about the trash at my solo spot, I am wearing a little silver ring, with a piece of blue plastic set into it, that came from a funny little dog toy.

Did she know that the face of the little dog toy is in my toolbox? I had nabbed it off her table to incorporate as the clasp of a yellow necklace.

But now I am keeping it with me, just as it is, to remind me of Cacique Claire, Nadine and everyone else at the ground breaking, paradigm changing, most awesome Island School.

October 6, 2011
by barbidoesmiami 1 Comment

Steve Jobs, TED and thinking different…

Beach plastic necklace. Crosses made from crate embellished with seed pearls

Today the ether is atwitter with quotes from Steve Jobs to “think different”.

Everyone is encouraging everyone to think different.

(A paradox I think)

The TED movement is based on this Steve concept, in fact TED has branded thinking different with “Ideas Worth Sharing” and encourages people from all over to share their ideas, their ways of different thinking, around the globe.

Many people are asking about my TED talk, “How did you get in? How did you do it?”

To be honest it had not occurred to me until I was invited by TED to share my recent work at their next event in Miami.

The evolution of my relationship to what I find on the beach and what I do with it has been organic and compared to the speed of my previous life on 7th Avenue where a new collection was due every six weeks, it was slow.

Very slow.

Slow is good. Slow gave me more time to think . But, because the thoughts happened over an extended period of time, they no longer feel different. They have become part of who I am.

So when I talk about my passion for beach plastic it does not feel like I think different.

Different may well be in the eye of the beholder and it’s in constant flux.

For instance.

Sixty years ago plastic was a “different” material. It was introduced as the material that would give nature a break because we were depleting wood, bone, ivory etc. Now there is not a moment in our life when we do not interact with it. The entire planet is awash with plastic. Oceans carry plastic particles around like cells in a bloodstream. Plastic has been found in tens of thousands of living species, including us. Single use plastic is no longer giving nature a break, it is suffocating life.

In the past I put my creative work out there, but not the thought behind it. I have always been more interested in the outcome rather than the explanation of the creative process and believe that authenticity resonates on its rightful frequency. But because my work now has an element of activism I succumbed.

Still

I’d hate to preach. I am not here to make any individual feel guilty. I can inspire but I cannot tell you what to do.

(Corporations, hell yes, I’ll make them guilty all day long, as well as government and policy makers).

But as individuals we have free will. We are in charge of our own destiny. We can inform ourselves and choose to act. We can decide to bring our own bags to the supermarket instead of using 20 plastic bags instead. We can recycle, reuse, repurpose and refuse. We have the choice to take responsibility.

in between the lines

My personal transformation started in Eleuthera 8 years ago.

On my first beach walk I noticed, in between the lines in the sand, bright flecks of color. My initial thought was how pretty but then I realized these specks of plastic were not supposed to be there.

By the end of that first walk I had encountered everything that mankind had ever made in plastic.

Crates, chairs, brushes, lids, containers, barrettes, flip flops and sneaker and endless lengths of nylon rope.

Even on this remote “pristine” beach I realized that we live in a man made world.

Being a designer I look at almost everything as shape, color, texture and inspiration and what I saw that day I’d never seen before.

The beach plastic had been tumbled in sand, salt and coral. and was bleached by the sun. It had been in nature for so long that it had taken on a natural patina. Some pieces looked like stone, like little colored gems.

I started picking them up.

My love hate relationship with plastic started in that moment .

Back home I tried to find out more.

I learned that we each consume roughly 300 pounds of plastic a year of which a mere 7% is recycled and 8 million pieces of plastic find their way into the ocean every day.

What could I do?

I had an ever increasing “collection” of beach plastic in my studio and I started making earrings.

Eventually I had an awakening to the possibilities of this material that was never really owned but had been thrown to the mythical place called away.

To make jewelry was a transformation, not just for me, but also for the material.

Think of a water-bottle top. Does anyone ever feel that they own a plastic bottle top? It just keeps the liquid inside the bottle, right? Which you don’t feel you own either. Does the manufacturer of your water feel he owns that bottle?

Nobody owns single-use plastic.

I like finding weathered bottle tops. They make great earrings, and I love selling single use plastic, beach plastic, into ownership.

If plastic is made to last forever then maybe, like diamonds, it can be loved forever.

I got this comment yesterday:

“Keep cleaning up the beaches lady.. but what are you gonna do with all those balloons with the plastic string ties and can you make something with all the garbage those people in Miami leave on the beaches while you’re at it???”

He does NOT think different!

I am not cleaning up the beaches for him or anyone. I do it for me. Creating beauty with beach plastic makes me happy and by getting your attention I implicate you in the tragedy of our single-use throw-away culture.

I hope I make you think.

Not just different.

Different is fleeting.

But think.

All the time

About everything.

website:

http://www.plasticisforever.net/

October 4, 2011
by barbidoesmiami 3 Comments

How to prepare for a TED talk with the Seinfeld method….

Almost four weeks later and my TED talk is not online.

I practice my ZEN patience and wonder if:

When one does a TED talk and nobody can see it, is it still is a TED talk?

As I write this I have not seen myself TED talking.

Still.

I am glad it is over.

Was it fun?

Did I do good?

I did terrible in the dress rehearsal. Like really awful, like I wondered if they could fire me.

It was the clock. Right in the middle of the audience, at perfect eye level, is a monitor. It shows the slides or video that is projected behind the speakers so we don’t have to keep turning around to address our images. Its about 3ft by 18″. But I could not really see because over my pictures there was a giant fluorescent 13 that took up the entire screen. 13 minutes for my talk. Seconds and minutes passing backwards, like the proverbial bomb in James Bond movies and I was James, responsible for saving the world in 13 minutes.

photo: Ilmar Saar

So.

At 8 minutes I thought.

As I was talking my dress rehearsal TED.

I thought. 8? 13 minus 8? Thats is 5 minutes done. Is that all?

Seriously, I did math while I was still speaking. Isn’t it amazing? The gymnastics of which the mind is capable.

Then I worried. Could I fill those 8 minutes?

I lost my train, my momentum and I blanked.

Bluh.

Mouth and head full of cotton wool.

Bluh.

Nothing came to mind. Nothing came out.

Nada.

Was I stupid?

I had felt really stupid late August when I had written my entire talk and started practicing. Almost 2000 words. I did not really memorize, which, as I was told by both husband and Gina from TED, was a bad idea, but I did have an order and a rhythm for what and how I would TED talk.

Besides I had a 13 minute multi-media show which played behind me.

Not that I would talk to slides.

Like manually click them.

I hate that format.

“Oh, and here we have me, at the beach, finding my beach plastic…”

Too much like those family vacation slide shows of our neighbors that my parents sneered at as ever-so bourgeois.

Anyway I was stupid when I started working my TED.

Unable to memorize anything more than one paragraph.

I got advice from everyone.

Do it in the mirror. In the car. Film yourself and play it back. You will be fine, wing it, you know your stuff , just make it up as you go along…

Right.

I felt so dumb that I bought Gingko.

I almost overdosed on Gingko.

I still felt stupid. I am too old I thought.

I have an old brain.

Then I worried about what to wear and I felt shallow.

I had my roots done, but did hair dye kill more brain cells?

I told husband who was still in Milford.

I had not seen him in weeks but he was coming to Miami for my talk.

He sounded sharp, bright and cheery.

“Not to worry, you’ll remember when you’re up there.”

Hmm.

Then I remembered.

(Yes, at least I did remember this!)

The Seinfeld Theory.

Do you remember?

Put to the test and proven in episode 143.

My problem?

Husband was away. But husband was coming to Miami three days before my talk.

That would give me enough time to clear my mind.

And he would love it.

As soon as he arrived I started clearing my mind.

Wow, he said. This is great. I should stay away more often.

The next morning I practiced my TED and could remember four minute spans. I had two days left to dress rehearsal, three to actual night. That was four to five mind-clearing sessions.

It so happened to be our 21st anniversary.

An excellent excuse for siestas. Back rubs. Jacuzzi’s and what may ensue…

By Monday morning, driving back from Iona’s school, I remembered my entire TED in exactly 13 minutes. What had been the big deal? I could do it backwards…

But then.

There was the clock.

The unknown factor.

That screwed me up.

“Its why we have dress rehearsals,” Gina said. “Now go home and forget about it. Do not look at your speech again. Relax. You’ll be fine tomorrow.”

I did relax on Tuesday the 13th of September. I had a pedicure and told husband I was having a nap at 2pm.

Afternoon delight, he hummed rather absent mindedly.

But happy.

Afterwards I confessed that I had been using him.

“What do you mean?” He asked.

“You know, the Seinfeld Theory?” I hinted.

Wha’? he said.

You know that episode where George thinks lack of sex makes his mind sharper and he feels smart, then Elaine uses this abstinence method but she becomes more stupid. So she begs Jerry to have sex with her just so she can clear her mind.

You know? No? You don’t remember?

Nah. I don’t think so. What day is it again? shall we go and see a movie tonight or something…?

Yeah, something!

September 28, 2011
by barbidoesmiami 3 Comments

The making and premiere of One Beach, the movie…

Q and A at the premiere of One Beach

Last Spring I got that e-mail

That uber message we look for in our otherwise boring Inbox.

The one that says:

We have been following your work with beach plastic pollution, we love it, would you be interested in being featured in a movie we are planning?

Delete?

Not me!

Looking for a hidden sales message? Like the next line would say: If you take part in this short questionnaire you too can be captured on film.

You bet! I did not trust it. I proceeded with caution.

It was not until I had spoken with all the makers of the film, the creative director Sean, the producer Michael, the director Jason and had signed a non-disclosure with Barefoot Wine (to keep it all hush until the premiere, hence no previous mention here at BDM) that I became excited.

They wanted to shoot in Eleuthera, where I find all my beach plastic, and so I sent them the limited list of places in Governor’s Harbour. Three low-key hotels, Cigatoo, Pineapple Fields and Coco Di Mama, and a handful of rentals that have 5+ bedrooms.

They chose Squires Estate.

Squires Estate, Toad Hall in foreground, Main Russell House beyond...

I had always wanted to stay there, ever since it had been restored two years ago. Alastair and I even looked at the main house when it was on the market. Its a dream property, on the hill, a 120 year old Victorian House, overlooking Cupid’s Key, walking distance to Club Med Beach – the most beautiful beach I know.

They booked me for four days early June. Two travel and two shooting.

“Bring your tools and your favorite designs, we’ll do the rest.”

If the camera added ten pounds then it was the time for a diet.

I did a two-day fast, a nine-day shake/powder regimen and swam a million lengths of the pool.

I departed, lithe and pre-tanned.

First to arrive, I chose the ground floor bedroom of the main house because it was the most private, like a mini wing, overlooking the pool and the Caribbean sea to the west. Everything was new, done by an Italian designer with exquisite taste, who’d mixed old with high-tech, quirky with traditional.

I got my old red truck from the garage.

I was already happy.

A few hours later the crew arrived. Curt, Sean, Jason, Michael, Scotty and Tyler.

Six surfers from California.

Had I died and gone to heaven?

OK. Yes! I am happily married. I’m a mother of three. I’m not young as such.

But hey, I’m still a woman!

lunch at the Beach House

I had an eery feeling – after years of being a service-driven mother, feeding, cleaning, chauffeuring, organizing and wondering (within the safety of my own head):

What about me?

A dawning sense that maybe someone (who can hear beyond the safety of my own head), had been listening, that somehow I had been good enough, that getting attention was actually allowed when you try your hardest to be a good wife and mother and employee and world citizen…

And I let go.

Snap.

This was going to be about me (and my obsession with beach plastic) and it was OK.

Those six guys were awesome, I don’t know much about them beyond those four days, but they were easy going, considerate, creative, charming, talented, professional and funny, so funny…

They made it possible for me to be me. To do my work, make my stuff, tell my message without ever making me feel self-conscious or insecure. At least three cameras captured me at work for at least 24 hours. It felt natural. It felt great. I felt beautiful. They helped me believe that what I was doing was worthwhile.

I wanted it to last a bit longer.

Last shot, left to right, Tyler, Jason, Barbi, Curt, Sean, Michael and Scotty

Still, we dispersed. They went on to do the next “innovator”, Tim in Australia, and I was just a tad jealous.

But I mainly felt empowered. Things were falling into place. back home I was asked to apply for the Miami TED talk. I went on my teaching trip around Eleuthera.

Last night I saw I Don’t Know How She Does It with my three daughters. I had read the book at a time when I identified with the author, when I was the overcommitted mother of three little girls who felt she had to do it all, or else…

Leila wanted to know if I had ever felt like Kate did in the film.

You mean, like, I Don’t Know How I Did It?

Kiki and Leila @ 2 years, by barred stairs in Milford.

My daughters are now eleven and fifteen. I asked if they remembered when I was the Mother with a Career in NYC.

They don’t!

They don’t remember that I went to Hong Kong for two weeks over Christmas when they were six months old, nor being in day care at age two because the latest nanny had disappeared without trace while I worked on 7th Avenue three days a week (living in Milford,PA). They don’t remember my equivalent of Kate Reddy’s bake-sale angst amongst the zealous fundraising stay-at-home mothers of the Homestead School.

Its great to find out that it it did not matter. That they are fine. More than fine. That I can forgive myself for those perceived shortcomings, that getting off the fashion merry-go-round to have more time at home with them was a good choice too. That feeling out of it and disconnected and fat and dumb maybe was just a cocoon, a small, limited space, where the next incarnation of me could shape itself.

Of course we always are exactly where we should be.

This is easy to see with the gift of hindsight, like looking at an old photograph and wondering why you did not really enjoy the way you looked back then.

When I first saw One Beach I felt that I was exactly where I should be in the big picture of life.

So.

Thank you all Barefooters for making this possible.

Jason Baffa, Scotty and Tyler for making me look good.

Michael Pizzo for producing and Curt O’Brien for setting it up.

Sean O’Brien for his creative foresight and green spirit that gave birth to the idea of One Beach.

And of course the entire Barefoot Wine team in California and New York that worked so hard to pull it all off in time for the premiere in NYC last week.

We were all there.

In New York.

The team that made One Beach and the people it featured, called The Innovators in the film.

Kevin Cunningham, a surfer from Rhode Island who incorporates beach plastic in making surfboards from recycled materials.

Richard Lang and beautiful Judith Selby Lang, the king and queen of beach plastic, fell in love on their first date while combing Kehoe Beach for plastic debris. They incorporate beach plastic in their art from installations to photography and jewelry.

Left to right: Stephanie Gallo, Kevin Cunningham, Sean O'Brien, Barbara de Vries Jason Baffa, Judith and Richard Lang, Elizabeth and Anne. Lying in foreground is Tyler from Smash.

We watched the first screening together, wept at the end, and were all amazed at the synergy between us, four people who have never met, in three different parts of the US, who collect and work with beach plastic and whose dialog and message has evolved in an eerily similar way without ever speaking to each other.

We also had beach plastic envy as we drooled over pieces in each other’s collection.

The premiere was at the Helen Mills theatre in Chelsea, with a live feed to our own Facebook app where over 5000 people had signed up to watch the film and subsequent Q and A online.

Sitting in the director’s chairs, below ground in NYC, taking questions that Tyler, our MC, received on his Ipad from Facebookers all over, had a surreal sense of opportunity, the feeling that when we all connect we can make a difference.

Below is the One Beach film, which we hope will help raise awareness of beach plastic pollution. Numbers just released estimate that six million tons of what becomes “marine debris” (non organic material that does not break down) enters the oceans every year. One Beach has a positive message, it is upbeat about creativity and possibility, but none of us have the illusion that just selling up-cycled beach plastic into ownership can significantly reduce what washes up on our beaches every day with every tide and every wave. We want to connect to people through beauty, and our message is to for everyone to reduce our plastic foot print (300 pounds per person every year) NOW by saying no to single-use plastics.

Tip: Start with refusing bottled water and plastic shopping bags, relatively easy steps, then pick an alternative material every time there is a choice…

Here are Sean’s pictures of the making of One Beach in Eleuthera: link

Sunset from the pool at Squires

September 27, 2011
by barbidoesmiami Leave a comment

my new website

My new commercial website is up, glitches and all, final version moving at laid back Miami speed. Please check it out, I welcome any feedback on look and how it works. Thank you!

http://www.plasticisforever.net/

July 30, 2011
by barbidoesmiami 3 Comments

TED and me and more on Trash Culture…

siding of a building in Tarpum Bay, Eleuthera

I am procrastenating ( I need spell check) writing this new blog.

Its been a while and I have much to tell you.

Like I have been less than fair to those who may have wondered whether I did get picked to be one of the eight speakers at the TEDxMIA talks on September 13th in Miami’s New World Center.

between the lines

Yes! YES I did.

Maybe I did not post this jolly news sooner because I was kinda in denial.

Like getting it was one thing, doing it another.

And when I write now, I have to be serious and write about what I’m gonna talk about. Fifteen minutes is apparently only 1500 – 2000 words and thats not very much. I have a lot to say. I want to be poignant yet funny yet serious yet positive yet convincing.

I think too much about it, get dizzy with info and ambition and then I start loitering around the internet .

nature paints with trash

I visit HuffPost to feel manipulated.

Like this trash story about a woman, Sandy McMillin, who was evicted from Walmart for wearing a string bikini that she had bought there a year earlier (and visibly worn 24/7 ever since).

“Dress code”, was Walmart’s defense.

I have an opinion on the Walmart dress code. A strong opinion in fact. I’ve had this opinion for a while, like ever since I’ve had the opportunity to shop at Walmart (which opened in Milford circa 2000.)

You see, if Walmart really had a true customer dress code then I’d be applying for the job of enforcer (or counselor while I evict).

With enthusiasm.

Call me a snob. Call me shallow. But before you do check out the link to the tattooed/leg-braced/shaven headed Sandy McMillin, who was spotted shopping for sour cream in the clothing aisle (was she looking for a new top, and decided on sour cream instead?) and her 15 mins of fame interview and then check out an entire site devoted to the standard Walmart dresscode, link.

Now I dare you to be saintly yourself.

BTW, can someone explain to me why the story of this year’s “celebrity inspired” bikini trends, where the fashion reporter chirps: “Kate Middleton and Pippa looked white hot and we loved their sporty chic style” earned prime exposure spot right under poor Sandy in her once turquoise threadbare bikini top?

Is HuffPost merely cheering me up?

Or is this a novel guerilla tactic to sell the masses a new bikini? Like, “Well, my last year’s bikini is a lot like Sandy’s and I’d rather look like Pippa diving in that white little number so off to the mall I go….?

synergy

Another reason for not writing sooner was that I went to Eleuthera to teach two workshops. (See ,I’m not such a bad person really, just a Walmart bigot for personality texture).

The first one was at the Tarpum Bay Cultural Center (The Prep) which opened officially with my beach plastic jewelry making event. Twenty-three local kids, teenagers, had signed up and on the first morning we went to Winding Bay for a beach clean up and to collect plastic that we’d turn into jewelry. I had brought the necessary tools and trimmings, aka findings, like wire and earring hooks and stretchy string.

The inauguration of The Prep in Tarpum Bay

I displayed my jewelry and showed a slideshow of my work so far for guidance.

It’s hard to describe what happens next, but it feels like a breeze of inspiration enters our space and sweeps everyone along to a level of awareness where creation comes naturally.

Like a spell almost.

After lunch the next day I strung a (recycled) fishing rope between the porch columns and everyone, in turn, dispayed the collection they had created. I made a short film of each workshop and here is the first one:

The next beach plastic workshop was at the Haynes Library in Governor’s Harbour.

Haynes Library porch that overlooks the beach

This landmark building was first built in 1897 but was ready to be demolished when Michele Johnson, local superwoman, and her friend Ros adopted it about two decades ago and carefully restored the ruined site to its former glory. To me it is the most beautiful library anywhere. It sits on a slip of land with Caribbean sea/beach on either side. Every summer the library runs programs for the local kids and this year I was invited to be part of the recycling program.The video below tells it all.

Since I taught these two workshops I’ve answered questions about where to buy tools, supplies and findings to make more jewelry. Michele, Shaun, Toni and others have brainstormed about opening a retail outlet, or maybe just have stalls that sell beach plastic jewels to the tourists who leave their artificial floating environment, i.e. cruise ships, to sample some “local” culture.

Now that would be poetic justice, since those floating cities are one of the worst polluters of Eleutheran beaches.

Sabrina from Haiti and beach plastic star at the Haynes Library

June 22, 2011
by barbidoesmiami 8 Comments

TED and me… a budding love affair ?

Away is Here

Away is Here I wrote as the title of my TEDxMia talk application six weeks ago.

Two weeks ago I heard that I was on the shortlist of fifteen applicants out of almost seventy and was summoned for an audition.

Through the stage door at the Adrienne Arsht Center I went, up the elevator and into a quiet and impersonal office where I sat and waited, straining my ears trying to hear the genius inspiration on the other side of the door.

All I heard was muffled voices.

I checked my check list like I was cramming for an exam. My key words and new statistics like the plastic industry employs over 1 million Americans, is the third largest US industry, generates about 450 billion annually, and each American consumes and disposes of about 300 pounds of plastic per year, ten times more than in 1960, and that we have produced/consumed as much plastic in the last decade as we did in all of the 20th century.

Then the door opened and two TED potentials (male variety) walked past me, looking ever so pleased with themselves.

I wanted to run. Like in the other direction from the judges, three female and one male, who were left behind in the room. But they invited me in and told me to sit at one side of a large conference table while they faced me across the great teak expanse.

You have fifteen minutes, they said, to tell us why you should be a TED Miami speaker next September.

Wow, this is a first for me, I thought. Like a huge fucking first.

J Lo, Steven Tyler and Randy Jackson came to mind while I worried about flubbing my well-practiced spiel.

See, I’m not a natural performer. At least not historically speaking. Yes I’ve done public speaking, to as many as 300 people, but I never sought it out.

I didn’t seek this out either. This TED audition American Idol style. I applied because I was given no choice by two enthusiastic friend-fans who sent me the link to the TED application form, like daily for two weeks, and kept asking whether I’d filled it out yet. I did not want to disappoint them, and also my approach to Plastic is Forever has been to go with the energy that is generated by the project itself. Which means say no to nothing, and trust that the path is right and unfolds as a I move with it. ( A Zen approach that’s also very new for me and has come with age and a better understanding of the way expectation can screw with process).

Anyway I’d filled out the application with the integrity beach plastic pollution deserves. Putting into words my passion to take this orphaned material and introduce it to the design world as something new, something desirable and create a new way to approach beach plastic ownership.

So I did my spiel. Or rather I started with it and then, as happens with this project, it took its own direction. It speaks for me as if the message is so burning, so urgent, so real that my simple mind has no control over it. Really! I know that sounds ever-so New Agey, but what I mean is that I engaged the people in the room, they became curious, started asking question and then the subject just directs itself.

Next they asked to see my images, and when that was over my fifteen minutes were over and I got a wee appreciative applause.

Well, I thought, at least I did not hear any applause for the two guys who left before me. Ha!

So.

Now I’m hanging in suspense, checking my e-mails several times a day, while I tell myself that I really do not care, that I am fine without it, that getting it will just be fabulous, but but but…

Of course I want it. Once I put my name in the hat, my spiel in the ring, myself on the line, there is no going back emotionally.

I’m engaged.

I LOVE TED talks.

They are awesome and I must be a TED talker.

I have entire arguments in my head convincing whomever why I SHOULD be a TED talker. I put my imaginative competitors ( I have no idea who they are) down for having old and stale ideas (I have no idea what these might be).

I have become a fierce TED competitor.

I do not want to be send home.

I do not want to be voted off.

I want to do an awe inspiring Ted talk.

And I want it NOW!

June 11, 2011
by barbidoesmiami 2 Comments

Plastic is Forever but I am not….

I am now of the age where, when faced with a photo of myself, I cringe and only see the wrinkles, double chin(s?), roots etc. You know what I mean, and I think maybe I’ll like this one in ten years time, as my mind is forever a decade behind my appearance.
So when dear Gina Rudan from Practical Genius posted this video of our interview last week I watched with my eyes shut until Kiki said, “mom you look really pretty.” It was the surprise in my daughter’s voice that made me look.

So, here some anti beach plastic pollution advocacy that I do not mind sharing, and thank you Gina for making me watchable…

Click here:

May 18, 2011
by barbidoesmiami Leave a comment

The Nature of Waste is here….

necklace made from orange crate found on Eleuthera Beach

My beach plastic friend and colleague Pam Longobardi, a Professor of Art at Georgia State University, has curated this gorgeous, inspired and heartbreaking digital show featuring a body of work from leading international artists who use plastic pollution (mainly of the oceans) by plastics like flip-flops, netting, rope, bottles, etc. in every color of the rainbow in their art. This digital stream was first exhibited at The Fifth International Marine Debris Conference in Hawai, and shows the nature of waste as seen with an eye for beauty and conceived with a gift of expression….

April 20, 2011
by barbidoesmiami 4 Comments

Make Beautiful

“You can make beautiful with garbage?”

The little girl asks.

Her eyes, barely reaching over the edge of my desk, flash white with excitement. She seems transfixed by the colored beach plastic, silver rings and wire, nylon rope, ribbon, tools, earrings, pins and bracelets that are spread in front of her.

“yes,” I say, “I can.”

“You make beautiful with garbage?”, she asks again, like she doesn’t quite believe me.

“Would you like to make a bracelet?” I ask.

She looks at me and nods. Barely. Still not convinced.

I point at the bench with my tees and jewelry and the wall behind it where a long stretch of orange rope, found two days ago on the local beach, is stapled against the studio wall. Hooked on it are earrings, bracelets, necklaces long and short, from simple white crosses to clusters of multicolored pieces of beach plastic. Twenty-three in all.

I get up and take her by the hand.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

I think she whispers Latitia.

“See all these pieces, Latitia?”

She nods.

“They were made by girls just like you. How old are you?”

“Seven.”

“OK, so yesterday two schools came here, to this studio, girls and boys, some were seven and a few were older, like ten and one was eleven. And together we went to the beach and we all picked up the prettiest beach plastic, as much we could carry, and brought it back. Then I helped them make the jewelry, all these things here.”

She tiptoes and cranes her neck to see each piece. I pick her up, and carry her slowly along the wall.

“These earrings were made by a boy for his mother,” I explain, ” and this bracelet was done by a girl just like you.”

She squirms out of my arms and runs back to the work bench.

“I want to make a bracelet, now!” she calls back at me.

We pick the stretchy string, she wants pink, and I pass her the box of beach plastic with pre-drilled holes. I show her how to string them and I cut a heart from a piece of Barbie-pink beach plastic. When she is finished stringing I knot the ends, add the heart and slip it over her wrist. She holds her arm away and admires her work like she’s Holly Golightly at Tiffany’s, then she smiles up at me and says,

” I want to make earrings for my mother.”

I arrived in Abaco (North Eastern Bahamas) Thursday morning aboard (the most delicious shade of pale blue) twin-engine plane, courtesy of Schooner Bay, a new, green and self-sustainable village of which I will tell more later.

Schooner Bay private plane - love !

I had been flown in by Clint (of community development) who jokes that he met me on the internet. Clint, an avid beach plastic collector with a special attraction to the beach bobbles from girl’s elastic hair ties (“They find me, I don’t find them”) introduced me to well-known Bahamian artist Antonius Roberts (his gallery/workshop is in Nassau) who graciously invited me to use his Schooner Bay studio and teach local children where/how to collect beach plastic and turn it into art or jewelry. My wampum fee, with which Clint (a fly fisherman) lured me in, was a wealth of weathered beach plastic bobbles.

Antonius explained that his vision for the Schooner Bay studio is to build a far-reaching community through workshops by visiting artists and designers, and I’d be the debutant-artist-in-residence….

Saturday was the first ever Schooner Bay Spring Festival, with music, a bike rally, an arts and crafts market, a barbeque, open houses, and an exhibition of the work created the day before by the students from the All Age School at Sandy Point and the Cross Rocks School alongside my jewelry, tees and scarves (as the original inspiration pieces) and the powerful work, sculpture/furniture by Antonius that is made from trees, which he reclaims after they’ve been cut down to make way for land development.

I spent Thursday afternoon collecting Abaco beach plastic and setting up the studio for the kids.

At 9 am the next day about twenty boys and girls, two teachers and a principal filed into the studio and crowded around Antonius and I as we explained the project before we all piled into three cars and drove along the sandy coastal road till we reached the part where beach plastic collects in shameful mounds just over the dune.

my new beachcombing buddy

We talked about all the things that belong on the beach, like sand and shells and seaweed and dune grass, but not plastic.

I had no idea how I was going to coral the eager, lively mob into a focussed jewelry making class.

I was scared that I’d fail. That I wouldn’t be able to reach them and capture the ideas I wanted to pass on….

So I told them to sit on the floor and spread out their beach plastic. To find a favorite piece. Something that had color or shape, which was special.

I sat down on the floor.

Then I just started.

I started with the girl closest to me.

The next girl watched us and started cutting her own beach plastic. Then the following girl copied her. Three boys stood behind me. They watched and went to find pliers. At some point our creative resonance morphed and suddenly every kid was busy making a piece. They were calling back and forth for scissors, cutters, wire and string. Some stood around the table, others were splayed on the floor yet others sat on Antonius’ benches.

“Miss – Miss -MISS!!!”

Wire strung with clusters of beach plastic were dangled impatiently in front of my face, almost poking my eye.

“Help Miss. What next? What do I do now?”

The girls made things for themselves. Boys made things for their mothers, but the girls teased them asking whether it was really for their girlfriends…

Some copied my pieces exactly, some did their own thing, but no one sat around waiting for someone to tell her/him what to do.

The principal sat off to the side, she’d already finished one set of white earrings for herself and would make three more and a choker.

Coco, Clint’s assistant, was the allocated Dremel drill operator and kids lined up to have holes made in their beach plastic pieces.

Three o’clock came as a surprise, we’d all been swept into a timeless, creative vortex, and they all needed to finish “one more thing.”

“Please Miss. A pin, a bracelet, just this one earring.”

It took more effort to stop them and tidy up than anything else, but finally everyone stood in a neat row and one by one I made them hang their work on the orange rope. Reluctantly most of them gave up one piece for the art show the next day, but I’m sure quite a few pieces were tucked away to go straight home and be proudly shown-off.