ARTIST SERIES: Heart-centered Plastic Art with Lorella Doherty
Lorella Doherty is an artist and educator who turns beach plastic debris into beautiful art. She is also part of the Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance, a ThetaHealer, personal trainer and mother. Lorella kindly shared the day with me and let me interview her when I was visiting New Plymouth, NZ. Here’s some snippets from our wonderful conversation.
FULL MOON MEDICINE that Lorella made during her 100 day beach clean
You’ve been picking up trash for almost a decade and even did a 100 day trash pick-up challenge. What are the main types of trash that you find on Aotearoa’s beaches?
The types of trash you see depend on where you go. Along city beaches you see a lot of cigarette butts, lollipop sticks, bottle top lids, micro-plastics, and polystyrene. Whereas if you go around the coast and rural beaches you get a lot older, more worn stuff that’s been in the ocean for a while and lots of farming and fishing twine or fencing. It varies a lot.
Has it changed over time?
Straws were another biggie but obviously there’s been a big change, so now they are mostly cardboard ones. Plastic bags used to be really huge but we had a plastic bag ban about 5 years ago. Now masks are everywhere and that was such a quick change… We’ve seen little changes even in the parking meters - they had a plastic liner on them so that they don’t get wet. We used to see them everywhere, but now all the parking meters are paperless, so there’s lots of little changes like that.
Lorella with the processed cheese wrappers. Photo credit: ANDY JACKSON/STUFF
One time, I kept finding thousands of processed cheese wrappers that had all been twisted and wrung up on this one particular beach. The council got involved and checked out all the local places we thought it would have come from… Then there was this old place where especially farmers would take waste that was hard to get rid of. What I think was happening was that those pieces would get washed out into the sea through these small pipes that twisted the wrappers. That company got shut down for bad practice about a year ago and since then I haven’t seen any of those wrappers except for the occasional one that was still in the system.
Does witnessing these little changes help you feel hopeful?
Not in that way, that’s such a small little thing. Ultimately you want no waste. Waste is waste. When there’s a reduction in waste and in plastic pollution, that’s when I’ll start feeling super hopeful. ‘Like oh wow this beach used to be so covered and now I’m not seeing any!’
Photo credit: LISA BURD/STUFF
Are there certain times when you find more trash on beaches?
There’s more trash right after it has rained or when there’s a big storm. Also during full moons because of the bigger tides. The substrate and the type of beach also impact it. If you don’t see much plastic on the beach it’s not that there’s no plastic it’s just that your beach doesn’t hold it. If it’s a straight beach it won’t hold it as well as a rocky beach does.
What main emotions are present for you throughout your process?
When I collect beach plastic, I just feel so much gratitude to be on the beach and I feel grateful to have the earth and the ocean. It just feels like: I get to experience this so I get the pleasure of cleaning up this mess that leaves it just a little bit better. So I just pick it up with love. When I am creating the art it feels the same. I feel a whole lot of love and gratitude and only make the art from that place of gratitude otherwise I don’t really feel like I want to make it.
Do you ever lose hope?
Lorella’s HAWK VISION sculpture made from plastic trash
There are times when I feel sad. I think it’s really important to go through that grieving process constantly because it keeps you going. I do definitely go through those cycles of feeling really disheartened and really grieving where we are at a place in history and the potential for where we could be and how kind-of simple it is and how simple it has been in the past. It’s just a switch that is actually really simple to do but it’s so hard to get there. Then I feel like we are never going to get there and so I have a big cry about it and that sort of fuels me.
If I get to the end of my days and I have all my grandchildren and great grandchildren around me, I don’t want to live in regret and say, ‘Well I just gave up because there’s no point.’ Whereas if we can stay connected to the emotional roller coaster of sadness and grief and bring back that hope then at least we can continue on.
When we are stuck with our head in the sand or are in the cycle of blaming and shaming, we aren’t going to take that individual action and responsibility. If we can sink into the heart, which is where the art piece comes in, we can take more responsibility and just look at things from the lens of your heart which has the potential for a different outcome.
What is the role of art in fighting the climate crisis?
Art has a huge role but it is not the only role and it isn’t ever going to be…The problems are so multifaceted and we are so multifaceted, so the solutions have to come from a whole lot of different places. That’s where the science really does speak to some people. People mentally love that side of things and that’s going to touch them. Whereas for other people, they’re going to listen to an activism song or they’re going to see a piece of art or an array of different art modalities and they will be moved by that.
Lorella with WEAVING BEAUTY
It’s like trying to fight plastic pollution, you can’t just pick up plastic pollution at the end of [the chain] and it is solved. There’s many layers of it. It’s getting to the top, to the legislation changes, the company changes, the education in schools and getting businesses and individuals on board. It’s complicated, but it’s like the Jane Goodall quote:
“I like to envision the whole world as a jigsaw puzzle... If you look at the whole picture, it is overwhelming and terrifying, but if you work on your little part of the jigsaw and know that people all over the world are working on their little bits, that's what will give you hope.”
So if you’re focusing on how you contribute to the world best and what lights you up, and if everyone is working on their little bit, then, all the bits of the puzzle get completed.
Since you started making plastic art in 2017, have you noticed the climate change and plastic pollution awareness shift over time?
When I first started making art and using social media to spread awareness, the questions used to be, ‘Where do I get this? Where do I get that?’ Initially, I had a really small list of only a few places with sustainable products and barely anyone local. For the last three years there’s almost no point in making a list because it’s practically everywhere… Now the questions are about the bigger picture, like, ‘What’s happening in the world of plastics?’
Has your messaging/purpose changed over the past five years?
My initial goal was to make the oceans cleaner by getting businesses and cafes to stop using single-use plastics and to tell people that you don’t need to use plastic bags…. Probably what I more go by now is heart projects as they come up. The main part of the art for me is getting people in touch with their heart, their feelings and their connection to nature. If we are not out in nature and connected to it, then that value system is no longer there. Then it’s just autopilot to grab that plastic bag, there’s not that link there. More of my focus is more on raising the awareness of that connection to nature and getting people out in it.
We all have our own messaging. If you do come at it from a place of anger, that’s also okay. That speaks to other people as well. You know, my message is probably 100x too soft for someone else and they might completely go straight over it but then it is going to speak to the people that it needs to speak to. There is a type of message for everybody.
Is art a connector?
Art is a huge connector. It’s all based around emotion. That’s where change comes from. We can’t be motivated if we aren’t moved. Anything that opens up our emotions is going to connect us to humanity and to the environment.
Where do you see your art five years from now?
I would love to start off with an exhibition here on my 100 days of trash artwork and then tour it. I’d love to see it used as an educational tool for feelings and connection. I’d like to open up that conversation especially starting with young people and getting people connected to nature, to themselves, to the issue, and to what they can do.
Photo credit: ANDY JACKSON/STUFF
I did this project collecting 10,000 cigarette butts in 10 days. I first collected 100 and did this poll essentially asking, “Do people know that these are plastic?” And most people didn’t. So I decided to collect more to help spread awareness and make a little film. But that idea just came organically so I like to remain open to what comes. I’d like to collaborate a bit more, any collaboration that you do spreads more awareness and reaches different people and communities.
As an artist how do you see the world?
As the most beautiful, incredible place… If we all spent more time out in nature, we would see that and would live accordingly. And yes it comes with all of its really hard, sad, horrific parts as well, but underneath it all we are so incredibly lucky to have landed ourselves on this planet at this time.
I want to see the earth continue in this beautiful way and I think that we have a huge responsibility to do our bit and to right the wrongs and to pass on a clean, flourishing world.
To learn more about Lorella, check out her website and instagram.