Recycled Art – Non-recyclable Plastics

This series of blogs features guest student author Devon G on his recycled art project, featured in Mobius Gallery in Spring of 2023. Join us here for this final article in the series of thoughts and considerations on art, community, and society, and how they impact and are affected by sustainable practices – through non-recyclable plastics! 

With confusion around plastic recycling, another motivation for my capstone project was aiming to find a temporary solution for plastics that are typically not accepted at recycling plants. Plastics with Nos. 3-7 on the bottom are less likely to be taken at recycling facilities throughout the United States. If these plastics are not accepted and end up in a recycling bin, they get sent to landfills. This is also similar for a lot of PLA’s – plant-based plastics – and plastics that are too small to be recovered in the sorting process [1]. These plastics that make into our landfills, oceans, rivers, and so forth, and pose a threat to our environment, animals, and us. These plastics pollute our waterways, get mistaken as food by animals, break down into microplastics (which poses threats we have yet to fully uncover), and so on [1]. 

These pieces were painted on large plexiglas plastics – which are not recyclable.

By using plastics that are generally not recycled, in the creation of art pieces, people can find a temporary solution for keeping non-recyclable plastics out of our waterways and oceans. More education on what plastics are accepted in an individual’s county/processing service are needed, but this is a fun way to encourage people to learn about their local recycling inputs, while also making art and contributing to less harmful waste in our waters. Eventually, it is possible for this art to take off, with styles emerging, and plastics becoming recognized for their art potential, resulting in less plastic polluting our water. This would be a temporary solution until plastic recycling is advanced, and or different packaging materials become the norm, or we find more ways in daily life to use less single-use plastics. While I recognize this is idealistic, I do believe there is potential showing this message by making art with current-day, non-recyclable plastics.  Read the next blog in this series to consider more about reducing consumption and use of single use plastics!

These pieces were painted on large plexiglas plastics – which are not recyclable. These were submitted by Chris Gildow’s class!

Citations:

1. Frost, K., & Goodman, A. (2023, March 29). The inconvenient consequences of a culture of convenience. ASU News. https://news.asu.edu/20181003-solutions-asu-researchers-plastics-pollution-recycling

Recycled Art – Over Consumption

This series of blogs features guest student author and BASSP student Devon G on his recycled art project, featured in Mobius Gallery in Spring of 2023. Join us here for this series of thoughts and considerations on art, community, and society, and how they impact and are affected by sustainable practices – by considering overconsumption and making unused items into art!

When looking at the United States’ consumption patterns, it is clear that we consume more than we likely should. Our capitalist economy encourages this behavior, through constant advertising, sales, and the next “best” thing. This leads to many of us owning more than we will ever likely need. Overconsumption is seen in our food purchasing, energy usage, clothes/goods purchasing, and so forth. This takes a toll on the environment and ourselves [1]. With art in mind, I believe many Americans can repurpose and or upcycle their excess items into something great. If these items are in working order, they should be donated or given to someone that needs them, but if they are broken and or unwanted, there is potential in repurposing them into art, or donating them to someone that has plans to.

Devon in the art gallery exhibit!

This concept is reflected in the Japanese practice of Kintsugi, which takes broken pottery and repairs it through the use of lacquer and/or powdered silver, gold, or platinum. This technique embraces the idea that items are prone to breaking, and rather than hiding it, Kintsugi highlights the imperfections of the broken pottery. Kintsugi explores the ideas of loss and rebirth, while repurposing an item that would otherwise be deemed a throwaway item [2]. Conversely, there is also merit in living with more of a minimalistic approach to our lives. While the saying can be cliché, less is more. Studies have shown that a minimalistic approach to consumption can lower stress and anxiety levels, save mental energy, increase introspection and reflection time, and a myriad of other positive benefits [3]. A minimalistic approach can make it easier to get rid of items taking up space, while also encouraging people to think about their household items and consumption habits in a different light. This promotes a repurposing mindset and may result in less overconsumption, and fewer values attached to material items. 

Recycled Glass made into Art!

See some of Devon’s and others’ recycled art in the first blog of this series. https://cascadiaupdates.wordpress.com/2024/01/08/recycled-art-inspiration/

Citations:

1. Wiedmann, T., Lenzen, M., Keyßer, L. T., & Steinberger, J. K. (2020). Scientists’ warning on affluence. Nature communications, 11(1), 3107. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16941-y

2.Deng, C. (2023, Nov 23). kintsugi. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/kintsugi-ceramics

3.Jain, V. K., Gupta, A., & Verma, H. (2023). Goodbye materialism: exploring antecedents of minimalism and its impact on millennials well-being. Environment, development and sustainability, 1–27. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-03437-0

Recycled Art – AI Artists…

This series of blogs features guest student author Devon G on his recycled art project, featured in Mobius Gallery in Spring of 2023. All the opinions and statements are his own. Join us here for this series of thoughts and considerations on art, community, and society, and how they impact and are affected by sustainable practices – through AI art discussion! 

Another motivator for my capstone project was the recent interest and shift towards corporations/companies using AI art in their promotional pieces and entertainment. This is becoming more common practice, and is concerning for the future of job security in art/entertainment, as well as a plethora of other unrelated sectors/industries. With mega corporations such as Disney – which pride themselves on their art/creations – using AI tools to craft their promotional pieces and parts of their show sets a standard for other corporations, businesses, people, etc. This standard encourages and normalizes the use of AI tools for work previously done by a human, trained in their expertise. 

Corporations utilizing AI instead of specialized workers paints the picture that this is the new “normal”, and that the use of AI should be accepted in the art-space. This is risky behavior, especially from corporations with massive budgets that could very well pay the artists for promotional work, and have done so in the past. Not only does the use of AI art take the livelihoods of artists, but in most cases, its datasets and learning is based on the work of millions of artists, without their consent – creating an IP and copyright can of worms. With AI models learning from millions of pieces of art, corporations using AI programs to generate their art are possibly committing copyright infringement [1]. This creates an ethical, moral, and legal dilemma – all in the name of saving money. Ironically, the legal fees associated with settling lawsuits and settlements could cost more than the savings achieved from utilizing AI art. 

If there is any time for the creation of human art, now is the time to encourage it. With AI art being normalized and encouraged, even for people that are not artists, now is an appropriate time to focus on human art and the people behind it. AI art will likely never be able to truly capture the nuances and characteristics of human art, this is advantageous for artists and society.
Human concepts and new artistic designs cannot be created by AI art currently, as it mainly re-uses and changes existing pieces in its creation. More must be done in terms of laws and regulations surrounding AI and copyright infringement, as well as job protection for artists and other careers potentially impacted/replaced by AI – this was in part the cause of the recent strikes from actors, writers, and more. 

Sustainability vs. AI Art

AI art also relies upon a large amount of electricity and server farms to operate, with cooling and other required infrastructure, all needing electricity and energy to run. While there is no specific data surrounding AI art and the energy requirements(as AI art is relatively novel), expected energy requirements for AI servers and infrastructure could match some heavily-populated European countries [2]. AI computation and its requirements has the potential to take-over cryptocurrencies in terms of emissions generated through use of these services. Opposition of AI art can be endorsed by supporting artists and human-made art, creating your own art, opposing media made with AI, and contacting your congressional representative with your concerns on the implications of AI and AI art. 

Citations:

1. CAIR. (2023, May 2). Ai open letter – cair. Artistic Inquiry. https://artisticinquiry.org/AI-Open-Letter
2. Erdenesanaa, D. (2023, October 10). A.I. Could Soon Need as Much Electricity as an Entire Country. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/climate/ai-could-soon-need-as-much-electricity-as-an-entire-country.html

Recycled Art – Inspiration

This series of blogs features guest student author Devon G on his recycled art project, featured in Mobius Gallery in Spring of 2023. Join us here for this series of thoughts and considerations on art, community, and society, and how they impact and are affected by sustainable practices – through recycled art! 

The main inspiration for my recycled art capstone project was a documentary we viewed in one of our classes in the Bachelor’s program in Sustainable Practices, with professor Soraya Cardenas. The name of the documentary is called Waste Land, which follows the Brazilian artist, Vik Muniz. Earlier in Muniz’s career, Muniz would work on a piece called Sugar Children, which involved photographs taken of children on a Caribbean island of St. Kitts. Upon viewing the photographs, Muniz wondered why the children photographed seemed so happy, while the adults were the opposite. Muniz realized it was the 16-hour work shifts on sugar farms that changed the adult’s moods. In other words, the sweetness was taken out of them over time, due to intense, grueling work. He realized he could use sugar to recreate those photographs, symbolizing the value of these materials and resources, while also using a medium not commonly seen in the art-world. These art pieces went on to transform Muniz’s career. The act of using sugar as an unconventional medium for art blossomed into using trash for art pieces. 

Muniz’s plan was to spend two years at one of the world’s largest garbage dumps in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, looking to explore the vastness of classicism rooted in the country; to learn from the locals and workers in the area, trying to find the intentions and plans behind his upcoming pieces. Upon meeting the catadores (garbage pickers), Muniz was amazed by the spirits of these workers in unfavorable working conditions. Their spirits shifted Muniz’s plans into a collaborative effort between the catadores and Muniz. Muniz took photographs of the catadores, projected them onto a warehouse floor, and constructed the portraits using recyclables and trash collected from the trash dump. This inspired me to explore using trash/recyclable materials as a medium for art [1].  

With an art medium that is not commonly used, but found everywhere, creativity and improvisation are necessary. In my experience, using trash and recyclable materials in art was a fresh undertaking. Going through the process reminded me of how much waste is generated on a daily basis, even for one household. Additionally, it raised questions around our current consumption habits, packaging amounts, future use of packaging materials, and so forth. 

Art can show us the hardships and beauties present in our society. Furthermore, it can show us the intricacies and inner workings of the minds’ of artists. In exhibits and pieces like Muniz’s work, people can see workers such as catadores in a new light, and with a new level of respect, while also re-imagining art in a fresh, new way, with infinite possibilities. So below are some images from my capstone project art show in Spring 2023 in the Mobius Gallery, showcasing various artists’ art from recycled materials!

Citations:

1. Almega Projects. (2011). Waste land. 

Yours Truly’s Six-Word Memoir Project!

You are invited to participate in a campus-wide Six-Word Memoir Project brought to you by Cascadia’s Yours Truly Magazine!

 

• Share something about yourself or your life in just six words!
• Submit as many memoirs as you like!
• Your memoir(s) will be part of an art installation at the Yours Truly publication launch event in June!

Join the “Creativity at Cascadia” Canvas site to submit! 

Here are some examples:

“Life is one big editorial meeting.” – Gloria Steinam

“Former Boss: ‘Writing’s your worst skill!'” – Amy Tan

“Found true love. Married someone else.” – Dave Eggers

“I turned 11. No Hogwarts letter.” – Laura Murray

“There are consequences to my color.” – Afua Richardson

 

 

We hope you participate! For more information, email yourstruly@cascadia.edu.

Ending spring quarter, here were the community’s submissions!

Mobile Lab Exterior Graphics Summary

by Christopher Gildow, Art Faculty, Mobius Gallery Director

During fall quarter 2016 my ART 110 2Dimensional Design students began a project to design graphics for the exterior of the mobile lab trailer (affectionately named “Mo”). As a run up to this project, the trailer’s interior had been demolished down to the frame, then rebuilt with a new interior designed by a group at Mithun Architects in Seattle. The exterior was then repainted with white primer.

My class divided itself into three working groups. Over the course of the quarter, they developed draft designs using both paper and digital methods. The process was difficult and technical, with lots of input, discussion and collaboration from all the students. Some of the working drafts are included in this summary.

Near the end of the quarter we decided on a final design – a background of mid tone gray tree silhouettes overlaid with a line of crows flying in an arch across both sides of the exterior. The front piece includes a lightbulb – a symbol of ideas and learning, surrounded by garlands of flowers. The back of the trailer includes the tree background, Cascadia’s logo, and a series of bumper stickers designed by my students.The digital files were sent to Jeff LaVasseur at Vinyl Attraction Seattle to print out into sectional vinyl sheets. The installation of the vinyl sheets onto the exterior of the trailer was completed in the spring of 2017.

Campus Videos – Making a Difference

Some of you may have seen on our Facebook page over our 2019-2020 winter break that we posted a good number of videos from throughout the history of the campus on sustainability, social projects, and some for general fun. Here in this blog are listed all the videos we posted!

Please like our Facebook page, or Instagram, subscribe to our newsletter for more exciting things we’re doing around campus!!

Environmental Technology and Sustainable Practices Program (intro video)

Click here to view!

Breaking Norms – with Professor Soraya Cardenas

Recycling at UW Bothell/Cascadia College

With Nature in Mind: Organic Gardening (on Campus!)

Waste Sorting for our Waste Ambassadors Program – BASSP Senior Hannah’s Capstone video!

With Nature in Mind – Wetlands (on campus!)

Cascadia College Wetlands Tour – with Midori’s Wetland course! (ENVS 220, offered in Spring!)

Crows on Cascadia Campus!

2019 UW Bothell/Cascadia College Snow Storm!

Submission Deadline!

The submission deadline for Yours Truly, Cascadia’s award-winning creative arts magazine, is fast approaching!

Submit your poems, stories, and personal essays; your paintings, drawings, photography, collages, pottery, and sculptures; and your original music, songs, spoken word, video essays, short films, and digital creations. The time is NOW!

Deadline: 11:59pm on New Year’s Eve (that’s tomorrow)!

Open to all Cascadia employees and students, alumni, and local-area artists and writers!

To learn more and submit, please visit our Submittable portal. If you’re new to Submittable, just create a free account in a few easy steps and you’ll be able to submit your creative works to us with ease.

Thank you for sharing your creativity with us and for supporting creativity at Cascadia!

all the best,

Courtney Putnam and the Yours Truly students

Yours Truly Students on Trust

Fall Quarter 2017 Magazine Publication students are once again reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, but this time they’ll be reporting on the “Big Magic” day they led in class. Students, divided into groups based on each chapter, will facilitate a discussion and lead activities that integrate the ideas from Gilbert’s book. Here, Cascadia students Keara and Skyler share their experience of exploring TRUST.

Trust
by Keara Capetti and Skyler Nelson

“Be careful of your dignity…it is not always your friend.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

When walking into a classroom on a cold December day the week before finals, you would expect to find most students stressed out, doing whatever they can last minute to get their best grade possible. Last week was “dead week” and for most of us, the work has been piling up and tensions getting high. The last thing you would expect to find is a group of college students trying to moo like a cow in unison, but that’s what we were doing on December 4th in HUMAN 210 class.

For the Big Magic chapter “Trust” we wanted to do something different. What caught our inspiration most in the chapter was Gilbert’s remarks on “embracing your inner trickster,” trusting your work to give back to you as you give to it, and we knew exactly what to do… improv. Instead of discussing how we trust ourselves, others, and our passions with the class, we wanted to demonstrate trust with action. Trust me when I say it’s no easy feat to go up in front of a group of non-theater people and pretend to be a cat, but the kind of open, welcoming, and trusting environment we have built in the classroom let us play and explore.

We had the idea to incorporate some beginner improvisational theatre games. The standard definition of improvisation is “the art or act of improvising, or of composing, uttering, executing, or arranging anything without previous preparation” (Dictionary.com). Not only is improv a form of theatre but it’s something that we do in our lives as a response to a certain situation. For example, if you’re in a stressful situation, you may find yourself making something up on the spot and improvising your way out of the debacle. Improvisational theatre has so many levels we thought starting small would be a great way to get people out of their shells and having SO much fun.

The games played in the class were “Bibbity Bibbity Bop,” “Rumors,” “Freeze,” and “Alien Tiger Cow.” In case anyone is looking to embrace their inner trickster, we will leave video links down below that will explain exactly how to play these games yourself. Get tricky with it!

Bibbity Bibbity Bop: https://youtu.be/SzJwxm38rjo
Rumors: https://youtu.be/uekqIDSn1CE
Alien, Tiger, Cow: https://youtu.be/UeUUHd4bQBQ
Freeze: https://youtu.be/QrZNTJpUJCs

Our call for submission closes on December 31st! Contribute to Yours Truly by submitting here: 

Yours Truly Students on Persistence

Fall Quarter 2017 Magazine Publication students are once again reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, but this time they’ll be reporting on the “Big Magic Day” they led in class. Students, divided into groups based on each chapter, will facilitate a discussion and lead activities that integrate the ideas from Gilbert’s book. Here, Cascadia students Andrew and Jovany share their experience of exploring PERSISTENCE.

Persistence Beyond Reasoning
by Andrew Kim and Jovany Ruiz-Navarrete

Photo credit: Andrew Kim

It is not uncommon to set an ambiguous goal and then encounter a series of obstacles that seem to be so intimidating that it would be easier to just give up.

As part of our HUMAN 210 course, we were chosen to lead a classroom discussion for Chapter 4 of Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic, a chapter all about overcoming obstacles. Since we focused on a chapter titled “Persistence,” we needed to make sure that all points were covered, as well as bring fresh ideas to the class. We had to think of doing something original, considering the fact that we were the fourth group to present by the time it was our turn. Due to this, we decided to bring a mini plush toy of Darth Vader, a character known for creating many obstacles from the highly popular Star Wars films. Not only did we attempt to lighten up the mood, but it brought laughter and smiles as he was handed to each participant when they shared their experiences.

Photo credit: Andrew Kim

We believe that nearly all of us have been through an experience where persistence played a major factor of overcoming a struggle and achieving success. In order to have our class engage with persistence, we asked everyone to write on a note card a moment from their life where they have encountered obstacles and how they found persistence to help them overcome their struggle and move on. We all had a different range of struggles, from overcoming personal struggles to succeed in education to being able to move on from deep family issues. One thing we all learned from the activity is that we each encountered our own issues, weathered out the issues, and continued to move forward towards a more prospective vision. One specific quote that we were able to explore from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic involved her saying, “Financial demands can put so much pressure on the delicacies and vagaries of inspiration” (153). This helped us with further understanding the whole idea of the chapter as well as being able to fully involve the class and teach Gilbert’s idea of persistence, which is for every one of us to basically not let any obstacle get in the way of our present or future dreams.

Photo credit: Andrew Kim

After our classroom discussion, we watched a TEDx Talk video of “The Power of Persistence” by Jeff Tao. From his video, he shared an experience that relates to Gilbert’s “Persistence” chapter. From the video, we were moved by his experience as he talked about how he left Malaysia to start a new life in Hong Kong. It wasn’t easy for him as he lived in a very small storage place and received very marginal amounts of money from helping his friend’s company, but he learned to survive that. In addition, when his mom nearly died from a heart attack, his perception changed and he realized that he had to work much harder in order to change his life for the better. He used persistence and hard work to have a better life for himself and his family, and he continued to be a high-profile entertainer in Hong Kong. After showing several of his magic tricks, Tao explained something very important near the end of his speech: “Our life and our time on this planet is very limited and very fragile so go out there, live your dream. Repeatedly do what you love. Persistence beyond reasons and you too can make magic happen.” We agreed that this quote is a very important part of the video because it ties in perfectly with Gilbert’s “Persistence” chapter. The most important thing to remember from this blog is make the best of what you wanted to do and never let the negative perspective get in control of your prospective goals.

Photo credit: Andrew Kim

Our call for submission is now open! Contribute to Yours Truly by submitting here: