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One society's trash is one woman’s medium for change.
Change is exactly what environmental artist Shelia Rogers aims to achieve through her current exhibit on display at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum through July 5. The exhibit, Oceans of Plastic, showcases 21 compositions created with single-use plastics that Rogers collected during her countless walks along Corpus Christi beaches.
“Beachcombing is an obsession with me. Over the years, I have collected thousands of shells from all over the world,” Rogers says. “But in the past few years, I have found fewer shells, and instead, I was drawn to document the condition of the beaches with their conglomerate of plastic debris deposited by the waves.”
A seasoned fine art photographer and multimedia artist, Rogers began to arrange the rubbish by color and shape in 36-inch-by-36-inch plexiglass containers — discarded monofilament fishing line, medicine lids, disposable silverware, and various other single-use items became part of her design. Her first and favorite piece, she says, features various red plastics, from milk jug rings to bread bag ties, and hangs prominently in her dining room. Rogers likes to entertain, and during one of her get-togethers, she says some friends saw it from afar and commented on its beauty. Then they took a closer look. “What is this stuff?” they asked. After she explained, they replied, “I had no idea that came off of our local beaches.” When she queried Corpus Christi city council members about the beach trash in a meeting, she encountered the same kind of response, so she built more acrylic boxes and displays.
“My intent with my artwork is to raise awareness of one of the most pressing consumer and environmental issues that we face: plastic pollution,” Rogers says. “By changing our habits, we can create a cleaner and more sustainable world.”
With the help of volunteers from scout troops and church groups, Rogers thoroughly cleans each piece of trash she finds with a toothbrush, scrubbing the dirt out of grooves and crevices. She then chooses which pieces she wants to use and arranges them skillfully in each box so each piece can be readily seen.
Not all of the trash she finds ends up in her artwork, though. “I have all these jars of shells [in my kitchen], but on the sink, I have an array of Barbie high heels, shoes, sandals, arms,” she says. “I found them at all different times.” Rogers also collects scuffed pacifiers, zippo lights with interesting designs, and bits and pieces of children’s toys.
Rogers uses abandoned plastic to convey sometimes heartbreaking messages, she says. One of the compositions in her exhibit features turquoise Cloralex bottles blown off of Mexican shrimp boats. Similar in movement and size to jellyfish, these bottles tend to be mistaken for food by sea turtles, with dire consequences, she says. The bottles on display are shown to have small, diamond-shaped cutouts in them, and according to Rogers, a turtle most likely bit into and subsequently died from those very bottles. “Turtles think it’s food, so they take a bite, and they end up dying due to suffocation. Or they eat so much that they feel full and die of starvation,” Rogers says.
Rogers hopes that people will walk away from her exhibit with the same desire to invoke change that she felt when she discovered her first piece of plastic that had washed ashore. She began a campaign in her hometown, to compliment her exhibit and help enact change locally. Called No Straw Please, the campaign encourages others to decline plastic straws and to stop the usage of one-use plastics. “You don't need a plastic straw when you go out to eat in a restaurant, but they automatically bring your glass of water with one,” she explains. Through both her campaign and her art, Rogers wants to persuade people to care about the negative effects of plastic pollution on our oceans, she says.
“You’ve got to show them the problem, and then let them know what they can do personally to help.”
