a good day for a barbecue

well - maybe not - it's cold and rainy

but barbecuing altoids tins doesn't require perfect weather

(don't do this indoors in your home oven due to paint fumes)

how I did it:

clean your tins

remove lids if you want to

wrap tins in a foil packet - loosely packed but sealed shut

barbecue on high (about 475 degrees) for about 15 minutes

let cool

unwrap (do your unwrapping outdoors due to the captured paint fumes in the packet)

it's an imperfect process with unpredictable results

some of these I will be bbq'ing a second time

I LOVE the tin on the left in the above picture - and have no idea why it came out so great

anyway - have fun with this - isn't that the whole point of a barbecue?

pocket gems

I have a small collection of mini tintypes

they're called pocket gems

I think they're the selfies of a hundred years ago

they were the original photo booth pictures

tintypes that were pocket sized and made for trading between friends

the camera had several lenses so that in one sitting you would end up with 8-12 of these darlings 

so what to do besides collect them?

make art of course

... the fun kind ...

an altoids tin shrine

what I like to call "jewelry for your wall"

ingredients:

barbecued altoids tin

steel tooth zippers

old book cover

sari silk ribbon

book text

dried hydrangea

beeswax

beach glass

solder

available for sale on Etsy

($50)

meet webster

captain ahab comes to dinner

funny how the things you just drop into a pocket can be such a source of inspiration

my nasty bottle caps picked up on vacation have been begging for a purpose in life

 I've nailed them into a block of wood that I covered with pages from Melville's Moby Dick

here's an outake of our dinner table conversation the other night:

I showed it to The Teach and he said with a smile, "Another thing of whimsy ..."

and I said, "it has a dark side - the description of the decapitation of a whale on Ahab's ship"

and my youngest said, "the flag with chinese writing goes perfect with it - you know with illegal whaling and stuff"

and my oldest said, "I think you mean Japan"

and my middle one said, "but it's a global thing - and look, three of my bottle caps are on it"

and Captain Ahab jumped ship right about then

on a sunday morning

today I grabbed my camera to capture a moment in time

crepes on a plate

the flowers on that table

and the petals that had fallen

wishing you a day with special moments

the world's trash ...

... is no one's treasure

this is some of the plastic I collected on a beach on the eastern shore of Kaua'i:

beach plastic washes ashore after swirling through the ocean currents for several years

Hawaii's beach plastic washes in from the Pacific Gyre

where does it all come from?

let's just say it can't blamed on cruise ships or cargo ships

it's where all the world's litter ends up - in the ocean - honest to God

so I sit in the comfort of my kitchen with clean water for my flowers and clean water for my tea

I wonder:

what will change our course or change our minds?

and then I make art that tells my children and their children's children the story of it

if the subject of ocean plastic interests you, here are some good links to follow:

Judith and Richard Lang's art made from beach plastic

NOAA's web page about marine debris

Greenpeace Intl's page on the world's oceans 

recent news about plastic pollution in the Great Lakes

recent news about plastic pollution in Antarctica

And from you:
Amelia's link to artist Steve McPherson (marine plastic art)

Gayle's link to youTube video by Chris Jordan: Message from the Gyre (this made me cry)