Mary Lou Dauray Project #1

Designed and edited by Heather Hart

All photos taken by respective students

Untitled

12''x15'' (watercolors, ink, graphite)

Allison Miranda

I was surprised how I was actually emotionally impacted by something that I really didn’t think would influence me that much.  Mary Lou’s presentation made an impact on me that I will include in my artwork for now one.  I realized that my artwork could make a difference in the environment, and that I could reuse materials for an outcome I’m proud about. She is one of those artists that will always be hinted at in future work, I hope to continue doing these pieces using different recycled materials. 

Fernando Arana

What We Have Left

12'' x 16'' (watercolor, ebony)

Mary Lou Dauray inspired me when she came to my Art Appreciation class and talked about how we are damaging the glaciers and nobody is doing anything about it. When I heard about that I thought about how we are polluting the water. I used the piece of plastic Mary Lou gave us and I glued it on my paper and I saw it as water so around it I tried to paint dirty water portraying how a lot of the ocean water we have is polluted and only a little is still clean.

Kate Barker

Consumed by the Pollution of the Life

(watercolor, pen, plastic)

I was inspired by what Mary Lou said about how pollution is taking over our world and how we should take time to appreciate the sheer beauty of natures simplest things, such as an iceberg floating in the vast open empty ocean all alone.  I made my piece about how items may be beautiful at some point but they will eventually become trash and we can bring it back to being something beautiful again.

   

Jade Barnwell  

   I would like to thank Mary Lou Dauray for her inspiring lecture to us last week. As I heard her speak, it stirred something within me- that natural artistic instinct, the urge to speak and my voice to be heard. I wanted to make change. I realized that the earth is dying. We as humans are obligated to take care of the finite resources that are found on our planet. Mother Earth is our home.

"The Eruption of Western Sands"

12'' x 15'' (Ink, graphite, acrylic paint, plastic)

   What particularly inspired my piece, “The Eruption of Western Sands”, was Mary Lou’s incorporation of plastic in her paintings. I randomly chose a sienna, red-colored piece of plastic. I then thought of Iceland, of the volcanic eruptions, beautifully dangerous landscape, and harsh, raw terrain that is found there. I immediately thought of the power of volcanoes. My painting is of a volcano next to a churning icy sea; the waves were inspired by Japanese-style wave paintings. There are low-hanging clouds in the sky, which is in turn grim and gray, as if polluted by some unknown poison. The volcano has erupted, leavings boiling lava to recede and pollute the delicate ocean.

   This is symbolic of the destruction mankind has had in North America, which is in the Western Hemisphere, which I allude to in my title. In the United States particularly, there have been oil spills in the ocean, and so much plastic in landfills that we are not recycling. We are, in fact, killing our planet.

   I hope my piece inspires other people to recycle and use their plastic in creative ways, like how Mary Lou inspired me. I want to use my voice just like Mary Lou has to make a statement about environmental causes. One day, I’d like to travel to Iceland or New Zealand so I, too, can make environmental art that portrays my inner voice.

   Art is emotional. It makes a potent and powerful visual statement that words rarely can. I hope that my art is as strong and emotionally resonant as Mary Lou’s.

   Thank you, Mary Lou Dauray, for inspiring me and talking to my class about your unique environmental art. I sincerely hope you can speak with our class again soon.

Thank you,

Jade Barnwell

Yoni Benjoseph

Falling

11.25'' x 15'' (watercolor)

I was inspired by Mary Lou Dauray, when she presented to our class about environmental art. She talked about pollution and how art can change people. Her work consisted of abstract, realism, cubism, collage, and mixes of techniques and styles.  I took inspiration from her series of glaciers that she created using a very geometric style. In my piece, Falling, I depicted glaciers in a similar geometric style and painted the layers of ice in a dark blue. The dark blue shows the top layer of the glacier is gone due to the melting of the ice caps, and the floating ice also helps set that feeling of melting and dispersal of ice. Above the blue of the melting ice is a pale yellowing sky. It represents the constant pollution that is destroying our atmosphere and letting harmful light rays in and leading to global warming. Her work taught me that environmental art can help people, and that all art is influential. 

Brianna Boyette

Glaciers

5''x7'' (watercolor, pencil, painted plastic)

I was inspired by Mary Lou Dauray’s paintings of glaciers, especially the ones that included pieces of plastic. I thought her ideas of plastic were very important and meaningful, and that people should be more concerned about all the plastic and garbage floating in the ocean. I made my piece to show a similar idea to Mary Lou Dauray’s. It also shows how plastic could soon ruin natural formations, like glaciers. 

Andres Cobo

Iceberg

12''x15'' (watercolor, pencil, plastic)

On August 23^th, 1966 seeing the first images of Earth through outer space shook the world; seeing a once great, well renowned home of freedom, discovery, and wonder as a frivolous vulnerable blue embryo floating in an endless womb of blackness. People realized how important little things really are in the universe, but in our own eyes and how they still make a difference. The sunset on a tropical shore, the grass covered in dew glistening in the spring morning sun, or the nice cool touch on a melting glass bottle of an iced-cold Coca-Cola, but do people realize the harm they bring? No one wonders what becomes of that glass after it is discarded, as the common fellow would say “out of sight, out of mind.” That’s hardly the case. It ends up shattered, contaminated, & widespread like panoramas threatening the land we thrive on. Oil, the prosperous rich black fossil fuel that powers our cars, boats, & planes forcing out black smoke into the throats of clouds having them leave behind nothing, but bitter tears into our backyards deliberately and knowingly poisoning ourselves with this costly black fluid. What is show in this piece is not only a man that sees the wreck in a foreign land far from home, but what could be his children’s future.

My art piece is inspired by the work of Mary Lou on beautiful landscapes, global warming and the effects of pollution by consumer products used on a day to day basis through out the course of our history through line and shapes.

 

Jackie Corodimas

Spill Effects

15'' x 11.25'' (watercolors)

I was inspired by what Mary Lou Dauray said about how the different effects of what we do to our Earth and how it affects us back. It made me think about the oil spills we have and about carelessness about throwing waste into the steams nearby. I used the black paint dripping down the river, letting it run down the paper in its own path to show how oil spills would spread through the waters and causes harm to everything around it. When she talked about her art with us it made me more aware of what is happening around us and how it was like this even back then. I really appreciate her coming in and talking to our class and seeing how the environment around this woman inspires her. 

Shannon Cruz

Disappearing Everglades

15'' x 11.25'' (watercolor)

Mary Lou Dauray’s environmental art really made me reflect on my home state of Florida, and its slowly but surely disappearing Everglades. I am a proud born and raised Floridian and what happens here really effects me.  So I made a piece about the Everglades. The once shallow water is being carved into deep canals that are unsuitable for the animals that have adapted to live in the Everglades, causing for endangered and even extinct animals. I used the piece of plastic provided to me by Mary Lou Dauray to show negative space representing the “chunks” of everglades that are disappearing overtime. I then hid the small pieces of plastic within my painting to represent how instead of harming the Everglades, we can camouflage the waste and use it so even help parts of the environment.

Nicholas D'Angelo

Mary Lou Dauray generously decided to pay a visit to Dreyfoos and show us her art work and what inspired her and by doing so inspired us. Mary Lou showed us her work with recycling and global warming. She also gave us a sample of what she works with and asked us to incorporate it into the piece we were assigned to make. I made a watercolor piece that is 12” x16” and is titled “ice light”. Thank you, Mary Lou for taking the time to open us up to new ways of thinking and art. 

Mitchell Del Mastro

The Impact

7''x 6''

I was inspired to create an environmental awareness piece when Mary Lou came into our Art Appreciation class and talked to us about her art work. I love how she painted glaciers using geometric shapes and differentiation in specific color schemes.  I liked how she talked about the island in the middle of the ocean made completely out of plastic. It made me think of how bad littering is for the environment, so I made a piece about the impact of litter on the environment. I used the small piece of plastic and nice piece of paper that Mary Lou generously gave each student to create my piece. I also used black pen and watercolor. In my piece it shows a hand dropping a piece of litter. Under the hand there is a dark shadow. This shadow represents the negative (dark) impact that litter has on the environment.  I used the water color as a wash that comes down from the shadow and fades out into white. This shows that the litter ruins the color of the environment. It was very interesting to have Mary Lou come in to talk to us because I was able to learn more about the environment and become inspired.        

Maya Drummond

Mary  Lou Daurey, whom came to my class a couple weeks ago, told us about how her journey as an artist began, and evolved to what she made now. As she told us these things, she told us about how pollution was such a large part of what inspired her to do the type of art she did.  As Mary Lou told us these things, my mind immediately went to how pollution is hurting the earth, as much as it hurts us.

My watercolor reflects the way this topic of pollution can be related to the pollution of thought in someone’s mind. Such as how anxiety ridden thoughts can change your sense of being, as pollution would do to the earth.

Cali Esposito

Superficial Bows

Mary Lou inspired me to use the plastic in a way to make objects that are used in everyday life. Bows are worn daily, and I created one made from plastic materials. This represents recycling, taking something commonly thrown away, and creating a useful item. 

Laurel Felt

The artist Mary Lou Dauray came into our art history class and told us about the problems that the earth is facing with pollution and global warming.  She told us that no matter who we are, we can still make a difference and try to help the community and the world.  She told us about how we could make art about what inspires us and what we feel emotional about. To me the most pressing matter is deforestation, tearing up flora to build homes and shops. Even in my small neighborhood there is always construction in one part or another. It makes me angry when I see the trees that I played in as a kid and even today being ripped up for more homes.  My piece is about how the beauty of nature is being taken over by the sharp unnatural angles of man-made structures. 

Celia Gerber

Spiral

16''x12'' (Watercolor, Graphite, Plastic, Acrylic)

I was inspired by Mary Lou’s presentation because she unveils what is going on in the environment today. Pollution is occurring everywhere, global warming is melting icebergs, and many natural landmarks are disappearing. Mary Lou takes these ideas of hurting the Earth and paints beautiful representations of nature, especially icebergs. This made me think about how our environment had started out organic, but over time has become overwhelmed with new technologies, urbanization, and industrialization. So, I made my piece as a representation of the destruction of natural things in our environment by starting with a protected, organic spiral, and as the spiral moves outward, the shapes formed by this spiral become more geometric, representing the urbanization and destruction. I used the watercolors to emphasize the natural feel of the shapes as they are being transformed into unnatural things.

Reflection

12''x15'' (watercolor)

William Hernandez

First, Mary Lou started explaining how plastic was effecting the world and the ocean, lakes and more. Then I made this piece called Reflection. This piece shows an iceberg that has a plastic paper on it, explaining how there is plastics in places in the world that affect animals like fish, seals, turtles, even us because the chemicals that are contained in the plastic are polluting in water. When it rains, it evaporates, so it can affect plants and us when we drink it. This piece has more meaning than what is first noticed. If this piece is flipped it looks like a bigger iceberg and the big ice blocks that are falling from the sky are really plastics that fall in to the water.   

Taylor Joseph

Fields of Freedom

(plastic, watercolor)

I was inspired by Mary Lou Dauray’s iceberg paintings because she said that the icebergs made up the environment that they were in and looked like they belonged there. I was inspired to do a piece based on the slaughtering of wild horses in Wyoming because, I believe that these horses represent the wild and free spirit of the land they roam. I also believe that, that is why they were there in the first place just like Mary Lou’s icebergs. 

Capital

12''x16'' (Graphite)

Marco Antich

I was inspired by the environmental artwork of Mary Lou. In my piece I juxtaposed the organic and colorful plastic with a black and white image of an industrialized landscape. The blue and green (colors of the earth) design on the plastic indicates that it could have been once a part of a natural landscape. By putting the plastic together with the industrial background conveys the messages of the scarcity of nature and the commoditization of land in the 1^st world. The fact that the organic design is on a piece of plastic (a harmful pollutant) is ironic, suggesting that any nature left is vulnerable to destruction through industrial capitalism and the profit interests of  corporations that capitalize on the production and use of environmentally harmful commodities such as fossil fuels, plastic, and pesticides. 

Gia Musso

Perplexing Visions

(watercolor) 

Mary Lou Dauray inspired me to create a modern art piece using ebony pencil and watercolor paint. The piece I created was designed to bring sorrow to the viewer. The colors I used portray how much global warming is affecting Earth. The shapes create a distorted circle that is representing the Earth. There is little to no green in this piece because, if nobody does anything to end global warming, ice will melt due to the rising temperature and, since there’s more water on Earth than land, the water will begin to cover the land.

Amelia Polyviou

Fluid and Sharp

I was personally inspired from what Mary Lou Dauray spoke about because I feel that the environment is the most important place to take care; anything we do now, will affect us later. Every living human, plant and animal on the planet. It made me think about what the world is going to look and be like in 50 years and if natural objects, such as glaciers, will be still standing. My piece represents organic and non-organic objects of the world and I used plastic and wax painted gold to pull together the shapes. I included designs because nature is an intricate environment and my piece shows that through complex designs. 

Sophia Simmons

Untitled

12''x16'' (watercolor)

Seeing Mary Lou Dauray’s presentation about environmental art dealing with the issues of pollution and global warming inspired me to do a piece about garbage in the ocean. When I think of environmental issues I think about waste in the sea.  I showed this though making the right side of the paper filled with garbage and the sky contaminated with toxic gases and filth. The drips show how the garbage is spreading throughout the ocean and will continue to do so unless humanity takes action. I had never really thought about environmental art before Mary Lou’s presentation and how I can express how I am feeling about it though art, which made me realize the importance of global issues dealing with pollution and how we must take action. 

Maggie Sperry

Drowning

11''x15'' (pencil, watercolors, pen, marker)

I was inspired by Mary Lou Dauray series of iceberg paintings. The concept that she expressed to us about global warming led me to create this piece of artwork. I expressed how pollution affects the world and is slowly killing us. She really changed the way I thought about the environment. Mary Lou Dauray really helped me get inspired with my artwork.

Katie Stenberg

Splash

11'' x 15'' (watercolors, plastic, colored pencils, pen)

I was inspired by what Ms Mary Lou said about the giant area of trash ‘soup’ that is in the ocean.  I realized that a good deal of this trash probably comes off traveling ships. I used my plastic piece as the body of the ship because that’s where the trash comes from. The water is supposed to look dirty and gross from all the pollution. I used lots of bright colors because plastic products tend to be very colorful. 

Nichole Taggart

Pipes

10'' x 15''

When Ms. Dauray came to speak to us about art and raising environmental awareness through art, I loved the idea. I loved the way she painted icebergs and knew I had to include one in my piece. I also liked the idea of showing industry directly affecting nature and decided to show that by having pipes and metal scraps coming out of the iceberg I also wanted to show that it wasn’t just the landscape being affected, but living animals, so I included a killer whale with its color drained out of it around the pipes to look like oil in the water. The last thing I did was paint in a bright orange sun when it looked unfinished like Ms. Dauray did in a piece she showed us. 

Caleb Thompson

The Trees by the Waterfall

16''x12'' 

Mary Lou came into my 9th Grade Art Appreciation/Art History class. She talked to the students about environmental art. She shared her experiences in painting from scenes of Greenland and how she was using pieces of recycled paper to create the shapes of icebergs. My piece was inspired by her watercolors, and the contrast between the geometric shapes and the natural spaces that the shapes represent. I used the shapes from the plastic that Mary Lou had supplied to create a nature scene.  I used the colors to show the almost unreal quality about the rocks that channel the falls, and the dreamlike quality of nature. I left my piece in a roach-infested area to allow the roaches to eat the paint that created the white textured areas. Since Mary Lou’s pieces were about nature being decayed, I wanted my piece to have a direct connection with nature and decay at the same time.

Richelle Thompson

Untitled

16'' x 12''

After Ms. Mary Lou’s visit, we were assigned to create an artwork with watercolor paper and a small sheet of beautifully painted plastic. These pieces were inspired by her subject material and by what we connected with it. In my piece, I used a water bottle, an item I carry around frequently, and filled it with oil, a substance I, and a lot of us, know very well. I picked the certain bit of plastic I used as I believed it looked like a piece of the ocean, and used its’ trapezoid shape to be the bottom of a cup, into which oil is pouring rapidly. As Mary Lou’s talk had to do with the environment and the problems facing it, I incorporated a related and infamous topic into my piece, the crude oil pollution of the ocean’s waters on a smaller scale, maybe. Around the cup, structures are located, which could be government buildings, business skyscrapers, or irresponsible tourism coastal cities. I believe these all have connotations to the sea, and human destruction of the environment, and I used the water bottle as to make a solid connection. 

Baily Triggs

Conflicitng Scene

16'' x 12''

When Mary Lou presented her artwork and explained it, I was very inspired. I had never really taken into consideration the effect of pollution. I was aware of it, but I never let it seep into my perspective.  Art was the only thing that could alter my point of view. Lou’s artwork inspired me to create a landscape of mountains. The ice caps are made from the blue painted plastic that she gave our class. I wanted to emulate her style by making the viewer conscious of a serene place in nature that is tainted by unnatural objects.  I used complementary colors to make the scene more fascinating and vibrant. 

Alex Turner

Trash

12'' x 15'' (paper, watercolor)

I was inspired by what Mary Lou Dauray said about water coloring the icebergs. I made my piece about how people liter, because walking home one day I went by a natural forest but inside it was tons of trash, so it made me mad so I threw trash on this paper and water colored it. Like many great artists have said, it is just paint on a canvas, but in my version it is just trash on paper!

Thank you Mary Lou Dauray for inspiring us!