Coastal Clean-up

     This Saturday I participated in a coastal clean-up along the Richmond shoreline. I was very much looking forward to making a difference, and being insired to continue the work that I do. One of these things happend. The trash was everywhere. There were about 200 of us at this one sit, we picked up more than 800 lbs of trash in a 3 hour period. That is all well and good, because that trash really needed to be taken out of the habitat. However, when I left there was still visible trash. The whole experiance sent/is still sending me trough a tug-of-war of emotions.

      Arriving at the site, seeing all the people I was just sure we were going to band together and clean up the wetland thoroughly. When I left the path and decended down the hill the garbage was in every direction in front of me. My reaction, "Whoa." I couldn't speak, I literally had to stop in my tracks to take in what I was about to walk into. Once I had regained my bearings I charged into the fray. I would say that waves of emtionent were passing over me, but it wasn't quite like that. It was feeling multipule things at one time. Angery at the people who were making the trash, mixed with emporwerment because I was picking it up. Guilt because I am sertain that some of what I have used has flown off a grabage truck, or out of my hands and ended up in a place like this.

       How can I stop this? How can I help? I decided that I would tell all of my friends about it. Particularly those he said they would be there, but negected to do so for whatever reason. Maybe if people knew the severity of the issue steps could be taken by all of us to prevent so much form ending up in the environment. Apart from telling my friends, I am taking some advice from Michael Jackson and stating with the man in the mirror. I am asking myself to change my ways.

 Steps to be taken:
Number one (and this is the biggest): Determine where my trash is coming from. Take mental notes whenever I throw something out. The more data i have, the more informed I am about my habits.
Number two: Try to buy product with very little rapping that will produce less waist.
Number three: Buy less. Do buy things I don't need, and try to buy used.
Number four: Reuse plastic bags. Number five: take the time to divide garbage, recycle, and compost.

Craft Monster

Halloween is just around the corner. October is high season for making Christmas gifts, so my halloween costume needs to be finished this month. That makes end of summer and fall high craft season. This year I am in the middle of cleaning out my house/life, getting rid of supplies that I have not used in a few years. I would rather use the small pieces of fabric than throw anything away, so I am finding places on my costume that could use more ruffles, or another bow. As a result, my costume might be more extravagant than it has been in the passed. Along with costume making I am getting ready to decorate for Halloween in my house, and at work. This gives me a chance to make decorations out of my as yet unused craft supplies. It is exciting that I might be able to make a costume, and decorate a house without buying one thing!

Reflecting on Past Projects

For a time, my roommate/best friend and I collaborated on what we called "The Door Project." Every time someone went in or out of our door a picture was taken. This project went on for 5 months. The Objective was to show change, and the passing of time. I realized today that I miss it. Thinking about what it would have shown if we had kept it going has made me nostalgic. As we get older, and are no longer in school, time moves faster, and we seem to change even more rapidly without the common grounds of classes and homework to ground us, and bind us together.
My other work, often has an end result that I could not have anticipated, and with these photos it was the same. I thought that we would collect a series of images, that over a few months would show small changes. Hair lengthening or shortening. A change in the weather, and our style. These changes are there in small ways, but there was a much larger, over arching theme. Ultimately, what the photos illustrated, and (what I did not anticipate) was love. A love between friends, who shared and apartment, worked and went to school together. Five months of friends, old, and new boy friends caught in jpegs. The first time we view the photos, in a slide show, as we had intended this feeling became very clear. I enjoyed this project very much, and although I would change somethings next time (the light for example) I would very much like to repeat it again in the feature.