The Last Straw

Making a mandala with the community in Deer Isle, ME 2009--sponsored by Haystack Mountain School of Crafts

February 15, 2010

“It’s logical to say that what I do is an act of faith.  It came to me and I worked it out.”

–Walker Evans

In1999 I made my very first mandala out of bottle caps and jar lids.  It was part of a show entitled Hello Again curated by Susan Subtle for the new Tryon Center for the Arts and was in the Bank of America atrium in Charlotte, NC. When Peter Richards, the artist director of Tryon Center at that time, came to my home along with Susan for a studio visit looking for North Carolina work for the show, I made a small mandala out on my back deck to sell them my idea.  Peter looked at it and said softly, “It needs to be big, really big.  Can you make one 20 feet across?”

“Yes, Yes, YES,” I replied.  And my work began.  My undergraduate degree is in Sociology, not Art.  For several years I had been collecting all of the caps and lids I used, along with those of helpful friends and neighbors. I kept thinking, each one of these caps or lids is a mark of food eaten, or something consumed, and they are NOT (at least the plastic ones) biodegradable. And all of this has happened in this century I.  By the time Peter, his wife Sue and Susan Subtle came to my house, I had already collected  and was ready to make my first mandala and they gave me the opportunity.  I have not looked back.

Mandala close up--plastic and metal lids...Please note the METAL Duke's mayonnaise lids...yum

Over the past 10 years or so, I’ve made close to 20 installations of my collection of caps and lids.  At colleges and universities, museums, schools, in a mall and once even in a synagogue, I have made them.  I have installed them as far away as California and Maine.  I always make them with the help of community members.  My friends and neighbors have helped with the collection and I must have over 100,000 caps and lids by now.  Most, I keep stored in a kind neighbor’s shed.  I use the same lids over and over again.  In a way, you could now call me a bottle cap expert.  I know that white is the most popular color for lids.  I know that the most common lid used is the white plastic one with the blue interior off of soda and water bottles.  I have a hunch this might be changing to a clearish color which most water bottles now carry. Sorting and using the lids, I have seen changes in what we consume, how we eat.  These are subtle but they are there.  I have seen brand designs change.  I now see many more orange sports drink tops than I ever saw 10 years ago. Many caps which were once metal have changed  to plastic.  Mayonnaise is an example.  The south’s favorite mayonnaise, Duke’s, which has a lovely yellow and black cap and used to be in a glass jar, now only comes in plastic–both the jar and the lid.  When will all my lovely metal Duke’s lids become collectables?  I wonder.  One thing I can say for sure is–in the past 10 years, I see fewer and fewer metal lids.

A week or so ago in yoga class, when I told my friend Marcy how happy I was to have discovered a toothpaste which came in an aluminum, recyclable tube, she said, “oh but the top is plastic.” Yes, it is, and I expected nothing less. Even a lot of glass jars with metal screw lids have that hidden clear plastic seal around the lid to make them tamper proof.

Plastic is everywhere.  I know this.  It just is.  This year, I am learning this over and over again.  Sometimes my choice is, if I am going to live any sort of enjoyable life at all (which, yes, I sure am),is  to do the best I can–to choose the way with the least amount of plastic possible and then proceed.

Being on the road which I was last week, is the hardest.  I have learned my steel water bottles are a necessity. Thank you Subway for vegetables and sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper.  Most school cafeterias are impossible. Styrofoam, Styrofoam, Styrofoam.

I have been living THE LAST STRAW life for 6 weeks.  I have more questions than answers, more curiosity than frustration.  My life is not plastic-less, it cannot be.  It is a life with much LESS plastic in it.  And for that I am happily grateful.  As my friend John Morrison says, and probably others before him, who knows, “It is better to do the best you can, than be paralyzed by the pursuit of perfection.”

Now isn’t THAT true?

Special thanks in this post goes to poet Kate Greenstreet whom I was lucky  enough to hear read at David Neede‘s house the other night.  She gave me the Walker Evan’s quote which begins this post.  If you get a chance, here is her blog.  You will not be disappointed. “http://www.kickingwind.com/”>