Just say no...

What, you may be saying, why the heck should I? Well, once again, the American consumer has been sold a bill of goods. Apparently the plastic used to make these pods were touted as completely dissolving and (I assumed) biodegradable.

Seems like they are NOT, at least according to The Shaw Institute up in Blue Hill, Maine. Here’s the science on it.

Microplastic pollution has become a national nightmare it seems. I finally caught on when I lived up in Rockport, Maine (pandemic days) in a house with a well and a septic system. In my art practice I will sometimes use acrylic paint and with a septic system, there is no filter so anything that you put down the drain has the possibility of ending up in a neighbor’s well or a nearby creek or body of water.

So I devised a low tech way of dealing with the dilemma: wash the brush in a metal cup and then dump the liquid (and microplastics left behind) into an aluminum brownie pan where it will evaporate. I even developed an art series based on photographs I took of the evaporating liquid with an iPod touch camera, which got transferred to photoshop for toning and post production. Then I added photos of my own, a few things I’ve created in AI and watercolor like “clip art”.

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These photos reminded me of the Hubble telescope Space photos which made me think about string theory in physics, in which scientists say we could be living with other dimensions that we are not aware of. So I began to make Unlikely Universes peopled with images that I choose intuitively.

I will have a solo show with this series of digital art this coming October at the Oak St. Lofts Gallery in Portland, Maine. Here is the latest edition to the series and I’ve already sold a print of it to a collector in Colorado! (Thanks Phil!)

This is called Strange Moons. I’m debating about whether to have this printed on canvas for a “master print” or aluminum. Like all my digital and photographic work, it will be limited to a series of 25 prints and then the file is destroyed.

Please share this post with artist friends who work in acrylic. I’d love to share this way to stop dumping acrylic paint microplastics down drains. Most municipal wastewater treatment plants do not have filters for these microplastics yet, but hopefully that is coming.

If you’d like a copy of this print, message me, I’m sure we can work something out! Until then, hope your New Year is filled with laughter and joy! And remember to RESIST!