Educating the public on what foreign man-made substances are infiltrating our oceans is essential to reducing the amount of human waste thrown into the oceans each year. One form of education that is becoming increasingly popular is marine debris art. Unfortunately, these artists don’t have to go far, a simple walk down the beach or on the docks at the marina can supply them with ample amounts of marine debris for their projects. Kathryn McKenzie creates mosaics and other artistic pieces out of marine debris (mostly plastic) in an effort to create awareness in communities regarding the severity of our pollution problem. McKenzie explains how her work helps bring awareness to the community, “Art is one solution, a mode of communicating this …show more content…
Bonnie Dillard, a Kodiak art teacher, has taught her classes how to transform ordinary trash into extraordinary art. In 2012 her art class created an octopus out of marine trash found by the students and the community. The octopus, lovingly named Ophelia is now on display at the Sea Life Center in Seward Alaska. Dillard’s hard work and outreach is being rewarded this Christmas as she was selected as one of ten artists to create ornaments for the U.S Capitol Christmas tree in Washington DC. Dillard plans to create ornaments out of marine debris in order to spread awareness all the way to our nations capital. Dillard states, “I want them to think about the fact all of this is in the ocean, and I want them to think about the fact it’s not going away” (Newsminer 2015). One person commented on McKenzie’s article, “Education on this subject is the only way to help diminish marine debris, as many people are unaware of the scope of this issue.” This commenter obviously understood what McKenzie was trying to create, awareness not just art. Although this art will never be able to clean all the debris that have entered our oceans it is a wonderful way to raise education that is interactive and catches peoples eyes in a positive manner and may help decrease further marine