Beautiful Contradiction #2: The Plastic Vortex

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yiPZNsW8fI
This video describes the efforts of graduate students at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution in defining the problem of the accumulation plastics in the North Pacific Ocean Gire. It begins, "A thousand miles from land, the Pacific Ocean is striking in its beauty; rich, deep blue waters, calm seas and serene stillness." The beauty of the ocean has been meaningful to me from the time I can remember. Growing up in a small town on the Northern Coast of California the ocean offered many benefits: a gorgeous view to the west, a moderate climate, an opportunity to play in the toe-numbing surf, a financial resource for my stepfather and others who made their living as fisherman, and a place many of us went to catch our evening meal of crab, salmon or abalone. That beauty is now being challenged by a throw-away mentality that has led to the accumulation of plastics and other rubbish in our landfills and now in the oceans. We need to make better choices as consumers, or risk the health of our oceans' ecosystems. Even from a very selfish perspective, we need to look out for ourselves. As higher-order consumers, we will be the ones at greatest risk of accumulating all of these chemicals into our bodies. What choice will we make? There seems to be only one good one.
Beautiful Contradiction #2; the Plastic Vortex (painting above) was inspired by this tragedy. Thank you to those from Scripps for doing the work to accurately define the problem! Now that we know better, maybe we'll do better.

Beautiful Contradictions

Very excited to be done with a series of paintings that I started a few months ago. The theme of the paintings is "contradictions." There is so much tension when two opposing forces collide. And with that collision comes a spark. An energy that can inspire action if the observer so chooses. The series is called Beautiful Contradictions.

Beautiful Contradiction #1; When the Levee Burst: The first of the series was inspired by the breach of the levees in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit. The storm itself was a natural occurrence. We think of weather as unavoidable, in the natural plan, divinely ordered, although it is becoming harder to argue that human interference with weather patterns is not a factor. Issues of global warming aside, the true tragedy, in this case, occurred in that New Orleans was unprepared to weather the storm. The breach of the levees was inarguably avoidable. Did so many people need to have endured pain and even death? One can't help but think how much suffering could have been avoided had a different series of decisions been made regarding resource allocation for the levee system. I refer specifically to the fortification of the levee system surrounding the 9th Ward. Nothing captures that tension more than the moment that the levee burst. Inspired by that moment, will our policy makers make different decisions in the future? And even in the face of such tragedy, there are countless stories of the people of Louisiana and surrounding areas helping those in need. Herein lies the beauty; that even in the face of human failure, many people acted in love toward their fellow human beings.

Beautiful Contradiction #1; When the Levee Burst is my imagination of what that moment entailed.