One of my favorite people in the local arts scene is painter, behind-the-scenes mover and shaker and the fashionably inclined
CRYSTAL BIRNS. So when I heard that Birns and several fellow artists, including the exceptional illustrator/marine mammal rescuer
DOUG ROSS, were behind a new project to create a poster that would tell the tale of local migrating ocean species, I was intrigued.
Birns explains that there used to be a poster on the Municipal Wharf detailing such migrations, but that poster has since disappeared. As someone with a soft spot for marine animals and for the arts, Birns had an idea to fill that void.
"I heard someone say that there's an underwater safari we don't get to see, and I thought as a visual person I'd love to see an image that conveys that. Artists can take scientific ideas and make them more visible," says Birns. "I walk or bike by the ocean almost every day and wanted to have an interpretive guide that can help me remember who's migrating when."
Birns and several fellow Santa Cruzans including Ross set about on a Kickstarter campaign called "Seasons in the Sanctuary" to raise the funds necessary to create such a poster. Monies were recently raised and will allow for the posters to be created and also distributed to 400 classrooms in two years all over California, as well as being sold at Bookshop Santa Cruz.
Proceeds will benefit O'Neill Sea Odyssey, which provides free hands-on science education to thousands of school children every year. Also in the works is a similar project but in a compact pocket guide presentation.
"My hope is that people, especially kids, will fall in love with the images and be curious about the subject matter and want to learn more," Birns says.
Learn more about the illustrator at dougross.com, and watch for a show of Birns's work at Stripe Men in February in downtown Santa Cruz. Look for the posters to emerge locally in December.
"The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary is kind of a big deal," says Ross. "It's like Yellowstone or Yosemite -- in the water. Once people realize they're living on the edge of it, this poster might help people become amateur tour guides to friends and visitors. It's not a nuisance to have sea lions on the wharf. It's cool. They're kind of a miracle."
The Garbage Man
There's that old saying that one man's junk is another man's treasure. I usually think that junk is just plain junk. Admittedly, I can never find treasure in a heap of junk. But local artist
ED MARTINEZ sure can. His reality TV project, "Junk Art Scramble," (junkartscramble.com), received quite a bit of buzz when it was aired at the Museum of Art & History in September.
"I am pushing 'junk art' into some places that seem to approach the finer arts," Martinez says. "I am learning to work with lighter metals and combine them in ways that more traditional metal artists have been reluctant to really devote to. I am also refining my techniques with hammers and learning more about the chemistry and physics of working with weird scrap metal -- some of which can be quite dangerous to work with. The whole idea remains to work with materials we throw away as a way to show people how much crap this society generates -- and that some of that crap is really beautiful if you scratch it up some and whump it with hammers. Actually it's not crap at all."
For Martinez, he's been a life-long artist, but he didn't really have a chance to fully pursue his passions until the economy collapsed and he lost his job. "After 17 years of working professionally and to a degree forcing my inner artist to live in pedestrian roles, I decided that perhaps it was time for a mid-life reinvention," he says.
His foray started in 2007 with using assemblage to teach people about the California Grey Bears e-waste recycling program and from there he has created a series of thoughtful pieces including "Forage Species I, II, III," which taps into his concern about the migration of bait fish in the ocean. "This is a potentially big issue and one that we really need to be talking about as part of the climate change dialogue."
Look for his "Forage III" sculpture work (co-created with local home school children) on display through the holidays at the Rittenhouse Building.
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