Description
In our nuclear age where modern technology defeats the impossible every day, billions of U.S. Federal dollars go to the manufacturing and disposal of toxic radioactive chemical waste. Much of this is a result of excessive testing and stockpiling of nuclear arms by the United States Armed Forces. Federally controlled disposal and monitoring of deadly substances into places that are becoming increasingly populated has been my area of concern. For over 70 years since the Manhattan Project, nuclear waste has been haphazardly piling up in numerous sites across America, including in my own backyard. The school which I attended for thirteen years was constructed on the original boundary of the Lake Ontario Ordinance Works (LOOW). This large tract of land was first used in 1941 by the U.S. Federal Government as part of the Manhattan Project and is still functioning as one of the largest chemical waste disposal sites in the Northeastern United States. I ignorantly lived my entire adolescent life next to a massive chemical waste site that is veiled behind an acre of trees. My thesis brings awareness to the atrocities of the current nuclear age we live in. It is also a symbol of our past failures and negligence that has destroyed the lives of so many innocent families. A large portion of my research is focused on the Manhattan Project, which was a secret government agency that developed the first nuclear warheads. The project started in 1941 and was located at over 30 different sites from the United States, to Canada and Great Britain. Nuclear energy sources have extremely risky procedures and byproducts. We know too little about the longevity of it all. As a society, we must focus on the more sustainable, long term, natural resources that are less destructive to the environment and significantly healthier for people and the planet. This work is an attempt to shed light on the severity of the contamination that is devastating our environment. It is meant to perpetuate a dialogue, informing the public about the inevitable path of destruction our country and the rest of the world is quickly stumbling down. In time, our growing populations will inevitably overflow into these waste lands that are disguised amongst the landscape. The work is a depiction of the irreversibly contaminated sites that are scattered throughout our country and the rest of the world. I am sculpting abstract ceramic and mixed media landscapes, environments, and architectural forms that portray our land being sucked dry of all its beauty and integrity. The images, surfaces, and forms are littered with natural and unnatural textures and color that evoke a feeling of an irreversibly contaminated environment. I often utilize a freezing and thawing process with my materials to create naturally occurring fractures and textures. I have become somewhat of a whistle-blower or an activist in a sense. I am a concerned citizen, fighting the developing industries and technologies that are raping the planet with little concern for future generations.
