by Kirby Lindsay, posted 3 June 2013
For the last few years the Fremont Arts Council Solstice Parade has featured an impressive, grand-scale creation made by Zero Waste Seattle volunteers. In 2012, they built a 100’ dragon out of used water bottles. In 2011, a ‘Cup-topus’ stormed the streets of Fremont – a 15’ high octopus with a 40’ tentacle span made out of the same number of disposable coffee cups used by the population of Seattle every second of every day, according to Jake Harris.
Harris is co-Artistic Director, and Outreach Specialist, for Zero Waste. His outreach has been effective in energizing volunteers to create amazing ensembles for the parade. For the 2013 Solstice Parade, to be held June 22nd at 3p, Zero Waste has selected a theme – ‘Under The Sea Trash Jubilee’ – with plans to build several different creatures out of several different kinds of daily waste products.
The decision – to recreate the trash gyre, and sea creature caught in its mass – is ambitious. It is also dependent upon volunteers helping to make the costumes and wear them in the parade, but after five years of Parades, and several successful efforts to change regulations regarding waste, Zero Waste organizers – including Harris – seem equal to the challenge.
‘Totally Grassroots’
Zero Waste Seattle, “is totally grassroots,” Harris explained, “It’s an assemblage of people working on a variety of issues.” The founding volunteers met at a Seattle City Council hearing on plastic bag fees – where Harris appeared in his ‘Plastic Bag Monster’ costume.
Zero Waste activists have advocated for the Styrofoam ban, an end to junk mail, a phone book opt-out, and commercial recycling. “I’ve done the doom and gloom messages before,” Harris acknowledged. “What excites me about this,” he said of the Solstice Parade, “we can hit people with humor. I have fun doing this, and people respond.”
Year ‘round, Zero Waste volunteers research and advocate – but the Solstice Parade, and other public events, have proven to be a fun way to get the message out. For a grassroots, all-volunteer organization, the website, scheduling for volunteers and presentations made before the City Council give it a professional and organized appearance.
Harris declines to take credit for any of it. “We have a great team,” he said of the volunteers that help with the website, the work parties, and the planning. “It’s not a very official organization,” Harris explained, and Heather Trim (his co-Artistic Director, and the Head Researcher) concurred. As he said, “It’s a rotating cast of characters.”
‘Bring Their Friends’
As for attracting ‘characters,’ Harris denies having any grand plan. “I think when you are passionate about something,” he said, “people respond.” When he advocated for the bag fee, his ‘Plastic Bag Monster’ sent a very positive, easily relatable message. Now he uses similar tactics to recruit interest in building the Solstice Parade. “I meet people,” he said, “and, of course, they bring their friends.”
At Northwest Folklife Festival, they set up a booth to create ‘Art For Social Change,’ and creations for use in the parade. Last year, on the giant dragon, “we had people attaching plastic bags for ‘skin’ and attaching plastic bottles together,” Harris explained. “It was a huge community effort dragon.”
This year they’ve also organized a week-long summer camp program at OmCulture, where children build a costume – a fish with aluminum can scales – and learn about parade arts and performing. It will take place just before the Solstice Parade, and if children (and their folks, friends, and other relatives,) want to participate in the Zero Waste ensemble, they can end ‘camp’ with a grand performance.
‘Exhausting, And Fun’
“I’m normally the ‘Plastic Bag Monster’ in the parade,” Harris recalled, “in 2012, I was the head of the dragon.” The dragon head devoured people – trapping them temporarily in its gigantic maw – before releasing them back into the audience. “It was exhausting,” Harris related, “and fun, all at the same time.”
“We get people thinking about where the plastic goes, when we throw it away,” Harris acknowledged. All the Zero Waste ensembles balance a message and art. In 2010, Zero Waste created ‘Phone Book Faeries,’ out of the excess of phone books people unwillingly end up with each year. In 2009, they were “a plastic ocean of plastic bags,” Harris recalled. In 2008, Ellie Rose led creation of Styrofoam hats – to bring attention to the need for a Styrofoam ban.
For 2013, “it’s almost always about the Gyre,” Harris observed. The ensemble will consist of several sea creatures – clams made from plastic produce clamshells, fish made from aluminum cans, sea anemones made from bubble wrap, jelly fish made from plastic bags, and a giant walrus made with cardboard ‘fur’. A giant collection of trash, “swirling around in gyre-like fashion,” explained Harris, will collect the creatures.
The largest of the creatures is recycled recycled art – a 35’ recreation of a whale made out of plastic bags and other materials often pulled from the bellies of dead whales. Created by Carrie Ziegler, the whale caught the attention of Solstice Parade Director Leslie Zenz during the Olympia Procession of the Species in April – and she helped Harris organize borrowing the art piece for the Solstice.
For the 2013 Zero Waste Seattle ensemble, volunteers will be needed – more than ever. Harris invited anyone interested in helping – or learning more about Zero Waste – to “join us, join us, join us!” Find dates for ‘Art for Social Change’ workshops – usually Tuesdays at 6p – on the Zero Waste Seattle website.
Or, simply look for them in the Parade – Saturday, June 22nd at 3p. Just look for the trash!
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©2013 Kirby Lindsay. This column is protected by intellectual property laws, including U.S. copyright laws. Reproduction, adaptation or distribution without permission is prohibited.