San Jose Bans Plastic Bags!

San Jose has today banned plastic carry out bags in grocery stores. The ban will take effect in 2012. I was surprised to read this development in a San Jose Mercury News Article. I have used plastic bags in my art and it amazed me a few years ago when I visited a local creek to collect trash for projects and saw many nests of plastic bags tangled in the water and surrounding bushes. This ban is a wonderful development for our community...no more of this urban tumbleweed! I will be nice to no longer see empty bags blow up against fences and drifting along the streets.

I have met an entrepreneur who is the son of a plastic bag manufacture. This son now has a business selling the eco friendly Japanese cloth wrappers called furoshiki through http://furoshiki.com/ His furoshiki are a lovely collection of local and Japanese designs.

Anyway, musing on plastic bags and am grateful that they will be a thing of the past. I do have a purse somewhere made of woven together Safeway plastic bags. It was made by a friend of my grandma in Hawaii. Such hobbies utilizing this waste will move onto other medium, I suppose.

At any rate, good news today on the plastic bag ban!

Completed Water Dance Costume

I have completed the costuming based roughly on the design construction of a straw Japanese raincoat. Thanks to the students of Lynnbrook High School and Horace Cureton Elementary School, I had a great selection of plastic bags to select from. The rest of the bags will be used in the public participatory project tonight.


















Below: Completed Diatom Rain Hat (inspired on Japanese rice farmer rain hat and diatoms)

Visitor Participatory Diatom Project

Here is my step-by-step board for the woven diatom visitor project at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles for the Sub Zero Festival tomorrow. There will be a second activity which is creating diatoms from plastic bottle bottoms. All materials were collected from creek clean ups and schools.













Today I will be prepping the plastic bags into strips for the weaving. I will also have print out images of diatoms for inspiration.

Final Water Banners

Today photographer George R. Young took photos of my Water Banners for the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. He did an artful job lighting each piece so that they really sang visually. George Young had been a friend of my family since he was stationed in Maui while he was in the military (he was a special diver on a nuclear sub). This was when my father was in college. George has been a photographer for many decades and has weathered the transition from film photography to digital photography with agility. He has been photographing my art since I started created little wire insects. Now he just shakes his head when I tell him I have three pieces that are 8ft tall. He had to scoot his camera stand to the very back of his studio in Palo Alto and the torri gate stand just barely fit into frame.

The elegant stands were created by Rob Bell. He made two for me. I'd love a third, but cannot afford it right now. These were a big investment for me, but well worth it as I can easily break down and set these up and use them for gallery shows, dance and in other settings. I just love them. I love it, too, that he used all scrap wood that had been laying about his studio for years to build these. Way to repurpose!























Detail image below:























Each banner will be decorated with diatoms made by visitors to the Sub Zero Festival on June 5th. The inspiration for the color and designs were ariel views of waterways as well as Japanese textile patterns. On the orange tapestry is a large hat that will be removed and worn by dancer Christina Braun during the festival. The hat was inspired by diatoms, and Japanese dance and rain hats. Each tapestry had light up led elements.
The banners will be later installed on the facade of the museum. The stands I will keep for future art shows and dance collaborations.
Orange banner below:

Plastic Bag Collection for Sub Zero Festival Project

I have begun collecting plastic bags and bottles from schools and a creek clean up. Above are some of the bags. I will cut these and link them into strips to create "yarn" for visitors to weave into diatom shapes.
This poster below went out the sculpture art classes at Lynnbrook High School in Cupertino. I will be visiting James Lick in East San Jose as well. I have been collecting from Stevens Creek Elementary and will also solicit from Horace Cureton in Alum Rock.























I know no one at James Lick, but will be contacting their art department to at least talk with them. I am curious to know more about their art program. It is such a busy time for schools right now. They are wrapping things up, there are tons of events going on and I expect I will be lucky to get a handful of bags from each school. Happily I just got a bunch of produce netting in the mail from The Wing Luke Museum. I also get a lot of this netting from mom friends and teachers at my son's school, Stevens Creek Elementary. I will be using this plastic in the banners, too.

Below: some of the plastic used on the base banner tapestries. Not a great shot and I have two here stacked as I need my building board for the third banner.
























I have been researching semi permanent installations and light festivals. I found this. I think the beauty of the installation is partly in the lovely old buildings:
http://www.valgusfestival.ee/eng/hansaflux.html

















I also found this and was pretty excited.
http://www.valgusfestival.ee/eng/virmalised.html









































The San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textile activity for the Sub Zero Festival will also use plastic bottles. The visitor will be using only the bottoms of the plastic bottles, decorate them with colored permanent markers and attach them to the banners. Some of these plastic "diatoms" will light up with led lights I got at IKEA. I had hoped to purchase the solar powered led lights but they are completely sold out everywhere. I was surprised but I guess I shouldn't have been. They were well designed, simple and elegant. Below are the small battery powered led lights I purchased instead. I will just have to switch these on during the festival. I had really wanted solar powered led lights and will keep exploring that for future illuminated outdoor projects. This initial disappointment in not being able to get these led me to research light festivals and how others incorporte light into their semi permanent art.

More on Diatoms and Tapestries

Above is a study for the hanging banners for the facade of the Quilt Museum. These would be made of twisted wire, netting, plastic bags, fabric, recycled bottles and woven elements created by visitors to the Subzero Festival.

Below are studies on the plastic bag woven diatoms for the visitor participatory element for the
project.

Water Tapestry

Back to the drawing board for the Sub Zero festival concept with some new ideas for the water themed banners. I am dropping the actual water usage in the tapestry as it is too wasteful a design. Here is the Sub Zero site:
http://zero1.org/events/subzero/

There are many artists using plastic grocery bags to weave with. Helle Jorgensen is a wonderful example. Here is her work: http://www.hellejorgensen.typepad.com/

Visitor component:
The creation of a variety of simple diatom shapes ( unicellular organisms found in water) out of recycled plastic bags and wire. The diatom shapes would work with the theme of water as these algae bloom when water ways are clogged with trash.


















Diatom photo above from http://waynesword.palomar.edu/algae1.htm



























I created a water themed kimono for Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Santa Clara a few years back that included diatom elements. You can see them here in this work in progress shot. They are the yellow wire elements.
step by step:
1. Visitor is given a piece of paper with a the outline of a diatom on it and some wire. Information about diatoms and trash in local creeks and The Bay could be on this sheet. It would also be nice to include information on organizations that do the trash clean ups in the creeks and Bay such as Friends of Coyote Creek and perhaps Friends of Guadalupe Park & Gardens.
2. Visitor shapes the wire to the diatom outline.
3. Visitor is given strips of plastic bags to weave in and out of the wire form.
4. Completed woven diatom is added to the tapestry by hanging it from an earring hook.














































Completed Diatom form above.
I would create three or four different diatom templates for people to work with. I realize that most grocery bags are white. I hope to be able to collect a variety of colors despite this fact.

Also, I knew there had to be diatom craft projects for children on the web. Here is one I found.
http://www.planet-science.com/outthere/lifemasks/mask.php?kingdom=protist&species=diatom
























Standing tapestry above or hanging banners below.























I am thinking of a fabricator in the East Bay for the large tapestry frame. But it would certainly be cheaper to have the tapestry suspended from a pole that hangs from the street lights. I will have to go look and see what support structures may be used outside the Quilt Museum. If I am able to hang these as banners, then perhaps 2 or three can be made and staggered along the path of pedestrians.

The base tapestry (The dark blue areas in the first digital sketch above) would be created by stitching together bits of fabric and mesh donated to me by Walker Bag. I would also perhaps use plastic bags and iron them together in the style of Virginia Fleck. Her work is very inspiring, too.
http://www.virginiafleck.com/

This abstract background pattern would echo an ariel view of the Bay and waterways. Here is the image I used for reference in my top tapestry sketch above. This image is from this site: http://www.primidi.com/2007/12/30.html






















I love this quilt like image on the Hidden Ecologies website.The poster are images from the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project. http://steel.ced.berkeley.edu/research/hidden_ecologies/?page_id=416
























I still would like to have illuminated elements at night. This would be appropriate as diatoms appear to glow.
























Pulling elements from the tapestry to create a garment for a dancer would be really interesting and dramatic. I envision the hat (see previous blog) to be a giant glowing diatom pulled from the tapestry. The garment worn would include the recycled plastic bag diatoms from the tapestry and, man, I still envision the recycled baggie fully of water in the garment being smashed by the butoh dancer as she moves to music concrete (water recorded sounds from local creeks and Bay). Perhaps an exercise in brainstorming here, but I hope can somehow have this come to life at some point, either for this project or another.