Splaine: Portsmouth art exhibit has me thinking about plastics
Plastics. They affect our air. Our ponds, rivers, lakes, and oceans. They hurt our deer, bears, dogs, cats, whales, dolphins, fish − any wildlife that may be attracted to the ink printed on them, or the odor of the former contents in them.
And eventually, they affect us.
There's a cute little place in our downtown that for the next week offers a wake up call and a reality check in just a 15 minute visit. This past Tuesday night, it did to me as I toured the 23rd Annual Joan L. Dunfey Exhibition at the N.H. Art Association’s Robert Lincoln Levy Gallery at 126 State Street.
A lifelong friend from Manchester, Bill Gardner − some people know the name − and I joined our mutual buddy of many years, former N.H. State Representative Steve Dunfey, on our annual visit to the art exhibition sponsored by his family. Funding for the show comes from the Joan Dunfey Fund for the Arts at the N.H. Charitable Foundation.
While all the art on display is excellent, what I found of particular note is the "BURIED IN TRASH: Plastic is Poison for our Planet" section created by local artist Bob Thoresen, who was Portsmouth's Planning Director in the 1970s. Bob was primarily responsible with several others for the visionary rebuild and renewal of our Market Square.
Thoresen, along with his grandson Jackson Swartzendruber, created numerous pieces for the show. Their art fills a partitioned room, and provides much to think about. It reminds us what we have done to our planet in the past few decades with the "invention" of plastics, and raises questions about what our future may be if we don't get smarter and conscientious about how we use plastics, including all those single-use "throwaways" to which we have become addicted.
In the center of the room is a thought-provoking "Cubic Yard" of single-use plastics of various kinds that illustrates, in visually clear and frank terms, what a family of four − yes, just four − throws away during a three-week period − just three weeks. The accumulated plastic bags, bottles, containers, wrappings, and tubes of their every-day lives fills a one yard high, one yard wide, one yard long container.
Anyone seeing the "Cubic Yard" will leave the exhibit more aware of what we throw away as trash. And how corporate America has seduced us into using, and abusing, many more single-use plastics of all kinds, and other products, that we simply don't need.
Where does it all go? Thoresen and Swartzendruber skillfully raise those questions with related displays. A card they have prepared notes, "Plastic is everywhere. While it is useful in many products, we are finding out it is not benign. It pollutes the landscape, it poisons the air and water, it kills fish, birds, and animals, and research is beginning to show it may be toxic to humans."
And to make it all clear, another accompanying exhibit, brilliant in its simplicity, shows how small plastic pieces can be ingested by humans from the animals and fish that feed on bags and bottles abandoned in the woods and floating in ponds and our oceans. They eat the plastics, and we eat them. The plastic gets into our stomachs. No, it's not fake news. It's not a conspiracy theory. This is real.
As we ended our visit and walked into the cool air of Tuesday night, I was thinking that I'm thankful artists like Bob Thoresen and Jackson Swartzendruber, and activists like City Councilor Josh Denton and others have embarked on the cause of reminding us that plastic throwaways harm us as much as they do Mother Earth.
Amanda Kidd-Kestler is Director of Operations and Development at the gallery, and invites walk-ins at all times. Admission is free, and art makes great gifts this holiday season.
This is an exhibit you'll want your kids to see. It continues until Sunday, Nov. 27.
A Special Note: Most people under 50ish might not have seen "The Graduate," a 1967 romantic comedy starring Dustin Hoffman. Though initially rated "R," with today's standards it's more like "PG." In the movie a really cool segment happens when a wealthy friend gives the Hoffman character, who has newly graduated from college and is trying to figure out his future, a one-word piece of advice as to what he should get into: "Plastics." Enjoy: (9) the graduate one word plastics - YouTube
Next Time: World AIDS Day, December 1.
Jim Splaine has served variously since 1969 as Portsmouth assistant mayor, Police Commissioner, and School Board member, as well as N.H. state senator and representative. He can be reached at jimsplaineportsmouth@gmail.com
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Splaine: Portsmouth, NH art exhibit has me thinking about plastics
