No complaints

 

When you do a beach clean up, there’s always the question, “How did all that trash get there?” There really is no mystery: Watershed. Litterbugs. Human impact. So to see so many humans come together for two hours, one day out of the year, simply to be garbage collectors for the oceans, was really quite phenomenal.

At Venice Pier on Coastal Cleanup Day, parents with waddling toddlers, grandparents with teenagers, busloads of school children and mobs of bicyclists from Otis College of Design came out on a cloudy California morning to do their duty. By noon, we counted a total of 421 volunteers. And they collectively picked up 284 pounds of debris.

What amazed me was the patience everyone displayed despite how long it took for them to sign waivers and get the 411 on procedures before heading off with gloves and trash bins. No one complained about having to wait in line. They stood there with infinite patience. It was the antithesis of the high blood pressure normally associated with Los Angeles living.

When you care, you just do it. No complaints.

Photo by Juli Schulz.

The Catchers

Kiritimati Island lagoon, sunset. An eyesore of industrial shipping vessels the size of small towns lined like battleships on the horizon. Sea Dragon surrounded by water the color of turquoise gems. The crew is languid. Read a page or two, play with hair, hang laundry. Dinner is just about to be served. Noise, excitement. Cathy has the fishing net. She’s after something. Look out, polystyrene!

Love your mother

Happy Earth Day! In honor of mother earth, I remind you to hug a tree, live simply and tread lightly. Be reminded today, but carry this consciousness throughout every day.

Loving mother earth awakens in us an awareness of how we treat the environment. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says in Earth Month’s issue of LA Yoga: “Treating the trees, rivers, people, and the rest of the planet as sacred, and seeing God in nature and in people will foster sensitivity.”

I hugged this giant sequoia on a day of torrential rain at the Mariposa Grove near Yosemite National Park. Although a native Californian, this was my first sojourn to Yosemite. I had ecstatic moments communing with the stones, trees, mountains, and massive waterfalls so loud they sounded like jet engines. When I finally made it to the trees, I felt as if I’d walked into a fairy tale, half expecting Rapunzel to emerge from the mist. It was really magical.

Our lives are so small next to these giants, not only in size but in breadth of life on earth. Can our impact be just as small?

Make a bag

Get crafty! Make your own re-usable bag out of old T-shirts or tank tops. Here are step-by-step instructions on how to make your own bag. Thanks to Justin Paul for shooting the video at RECYCLE: See It Hear It Feel It.

FAQ’s

Q: I like to shop for organic produce at the farmer’s market. Will the converted bag be strong enough to hold potatoes, cauliflower, and other heavy fruits and vegetables?
A: Indeed! I recommend you make your bag out of a medium-sized shirt, and double-stitch the bottom for more durability. Keep the handles (created by cutting off the sleeves) thicker as well.

Q: Are the silkscreened bags machine washable?
A: Yes!

Q: I’m a man. Is it okay for me to tote this bag?
A: It’s quite manly to carry a re-usable bag. It shows that you’ve evolved beyond single-use plastics and that definitely wins points with the ladies!

Wavemaker Awards

This past weekend, I had the honor of receiving Surfrider Foundation’s 2010 Wavemaker Award for Coastal Impact. I was joined by two colleagues from the West LA / Malibu chapter, Juli Schulz and Drew Albenze, in receiving honors for our work.

I am deeply grateful for this recognition, because I am just one of many volunteers who work to make the Surfrider mission statement real: To protect our oceans, waves and beaches.

Asked to tell a story at the podium, I said this:

“My obsession with surfing brought me to Surfrider. It is my deep gratitude for the treasures that we have as our coastlines that makes me an activist. Recently, I’ve also picked up rock climbing as an obsession. I never thought I’d be interested in an activity away from the ocean, until I read something that blew my mind: Geologists have found fossils of ocean animals in the Himalayas. That spoke to me because it shows that what is ocean becomes land, and what is land becomes ocean. I hope that geologists of the future find ocean animals instead of plastics in the rocks. This is exactly why I work on Rise Above Plastics.”

My thanks goes to Angela Howe for being a stalwart guide on the legal matters of bag bans, Ximena Waissbluth for giving me the presentation that made me realize I was a complicit consumer in plastic pollution, and Juli Schulz for inviting me to that presentation. It changed all my habits and decisions, and opened me up to a world of the most savvy and dedicated environmentalists.

The day after, I celebrated at Old Man’s for a day of surfing with Angela and Karen. The waves were mellow and peaceful. A new generation of cool kid teenagers gave a great show of longboarding style. Kassia Meador paddled past me in her checkered wetsuit, then gracefully rode by on a slow motion peeler. It was Superbowl Sunday, yet it was timeless, as always at San Onofre. I thanked the waves for leading me to Surfrider.

Los Cerritos goes green

On the request of the school’s surf team, Juli Schulz and I went to Los Cerritos Middle School in Thousand Oaks to give a Rise Above Plastics presentation last Monday. We spoke to two hundred 6th, 7th and 8th graders. The kids were really well-behaved and enthusiastic.

Everyone walked away with more eco-friendly resolutions like telling their parents to use re-usable bags, bringing their lunch in Tiffin boxes and using stainless steel water bottles. Kathi Northrop, an administrator at the school, emailed me later to say the school loved the presentation so much they’re thinking of doing a school-wide assembly on Rise Above Plastics. Way to go Los Cerritos!

Update:
I came back in March and spoke to 1,000 kids, in two school assemblies. A very receptive, curious and smart group of kids!

Note to young designers: The world needs you

My friend Lara Hoad teaches a class in the Integrated Learning department at Otis College of Art and Design. Students from across the disciplines come together and collaborate on projects around a particular theme. For Lara’s class, it’s Rise Above Plastics. Students learn about the problem of plastic marine pollution, and create projects that address it from the lens of advocacy and activism.

Last Monday, Lara invited members from the Surfrider West LA/Malibu Rise Above Plastics committee to join as guest critics of the final student projects.

It was quite exciting for me to be back in design classrooms again. I taught for three semesters at Parsons in 2004-2005, fresh after graduation from Cranbrook. Back then, the critical studies department at Parsons required all incoming freshmen to take a critical studies class on Marxism, feminism, and ethics. It was a great challenge for me to present all three very erudite subjects to them. I remember what at first seemed daunting to the students morphed into curiousity and then full-on vivaciousness as they bridged theories on commodities, “the gaze” and morality into art, fashion and design. The green movement was barely on the radar of any design school.

Since then, the environmental movement has gained immense traction and to have it emerge in the design disciplines is a natural and timely progression.

Four projects were presented from the integrated learning class:

1. “Recipe for Disaster,” a PSA led by Sean Watkins.

2. “Plastic Bale” art installation led by Tahani Abbas.

3. “Are You Plastic-Free?” business certification led by Lindsey Hall.

4. “Four R’s” bags and posters led by Kelly Toki.

I really liked that they spanned across a wide range of media for propagation, from the business model of the certification program, to the comedic parody of the cooking show PSA, to the public engagement of the art installation and adorable fashion statement of the re-usable bags.

To the Four R’s group, one critic challenged the students to create bags that men would want to carry, like a re-usable man-bag or “murse.” I also thought it would be great for the bags to be sold on Etsy — these bags are truly well-crafted, out of old T-shirts to boot. And the green business certification program has so much legs that our Surfrider chapter plans to bring that to local businesses in the Venice area.

On closing out the final review, a student from Texas remarked that sometimes she felt like her advocacy wasn’t taken seriously because she was, she implied, “merely” a design student at an art school and not a law student or something more traditionally professional. I wanted to address this clearly to them that designers and artists are the first to take activism by the helm.

I had wondered this myself: What is the role of design in a world where ice glaciers are melting and plastic is floating in our oceans like confetti? Should I join the UN? Go back to school and earn a law degree so I can litigate against polluters? Do I chuck the MFA out the window and become a scientist and study weather patterns and chemical toxins? Or, do I take what I know in this discipline and adopt the viewpoint that everything in our world needs to be re-designed if we are to save the planet?

The world needs to be re-designed. For designers looking for work: take a look around you. Everything about the way we live could use a push of the re-start button. Those were the words I offered to the students, and to which I offer myself.

Bag ban interview with Jim Moriarty

I was honored to be interviewed by Surfrider CEO Jim Moriarty about the LA County bag ban. Jim talked to Juli Schulz and I about what the ban means for our coasts. Jim is an inspiring leader, whether he’s in the Gulf after the oil spill to see its effects first-hand, or when he’s consistently blogging, writing or speaking about water issues. It’s an exciting time to be a part of Surfrider under his leadership.

LA bag ban

We interrupt our regularly scheduled design program to bring you a post about advocacy. If you haven’t heard about it already, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to ban single-use plastic bags from unincorporated Los Angeles County areas this week. That means people in the white region in the map below will no longer be asked “Paper or Plastic?” at checkout counters, because they would have already hopped on the re-usable bag train. And if they do want paper, they’ll have to pay a dime for it, which pays the store back for the cost of the paper bag. “Unincorporated LA County” may not look like much on the map, but it accounts for more than 1 million people, which is by far the largest municipal ban in the nation.

Why does this matter to me? As a surfer, I see and pick up marine debris many times while out surfing. I’ve picked up straws, potato chip bags, candy wrappers, and plastic grocery bags that float errantly out there, sometimes forming their own trash colonies — and that’s just the trash that’s big enough to be brought back to land. It’s a nuisance and my legs look strangely elephant woman-ish with so much trash stuffed in my wetsuit when I emerge from the water, but I’ve pledged to do this whenever I encounter marine debris while I surf.

As part of Surfrider’s West LA/Malibu chapter’s Rise Above Plastics committee, I attended the hearing on Tuesday and was elated it got passed. Fellow members from the chapter did a performance art protest, where one dressed up as big-moneyed American Chemistry Council holding an environmental advocate hostage. You can see me being interviewed by the local news channel, though by a case of mistaken identity they thought I was my colleague Angela Howe.

Advocacy like this is what keeps my design chops up. It keeps me grounded to issues in the world, and gets the fire going for new projects that give meaning to my design work.

CREDITS / Rally image by Nancy Hastings / Marine debris poster by Ben Stockley for Surfrider