Visiting the city - Essay Example

Visiting the I am at Fire Island National Seashore, preparing to view Betty Beaumont’s creation “Ocean Landmark”, which she created in 1980 using 500 tons of processed coal-waste and laid on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean’s continental shelf as an artistic sculpture (Art & Technology Collaboration). I have decided to travel to New York and make a trip to Fire Island to see this piece because this sculpture made of volatile, toxic materials has been transformed into a thriving marine ecosystem and brought renewed life to the ecosystem.

By creating this piece, Betty Beaumont is trying to let us all know we can take the potentially harmful waste we produce and create something that is helpful to the environment. A week-long trip to New York City would cost about $2,000, including flight, vehicle rental and hotel accommodations (Travel.com). Betty Beaumont is one of the original supporters of environmental art and has used nature and natural landscapes in many of her original pieces (Betty Beaumont Ocean Landscapes). New York City is on the east coast of the United States in the state of New York.

As a fashion and tourist capital of the world, New York City has a vast array of resident ethnic groups that have infused the city with their diverse cultures and numerous native cuisines. Many architectural monuments, such as the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, are located in this great city as well as the world famous Broadway theatre district and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The city is partitioned into five boroughs, the main borough being Manhattan, an island and the main hub of the city.

The overall climate is seasonal, the winter months being November through February and each season following the basic four-month structure. Betty Beaumont used 17,000 coal fly-ask bricks measuring 8x8x16 inches to create the “Ocean Landmark” sculpture (Betty Beaumont: The Oceans). The materials were transported by truck from the Ohio plant that supplied the materials and transported to the site by barge (Betty Beaumont Ocean Landmarks). Teams of scuba divers, biologists, chemists, oceanographers, and engineers at Columbia University, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and Bell Laboratories in New Jersey collaborated with Beaumont over a two-year period to plan the structure (Betty Beaumont: The Oceans).

However, the entire 150 foot long ecosystem was installed during a single day beneath 70 feet of water (Betty Beaumont: The Oceans). The use of industrial waste to revitalize a marine ecosystem is a wonderful concept that moves me due to the enormous destruction industrial waste currently does to aquatic environments. The depth of the sculpture beneath the Atlantic Ocean does not allow for much light to reach the surface of the structure. Betty Beaumont’s use of natural mediums to create her work has dubbed her style as Naturalism.

She has been using human refuse to create artistic pieces since 1977 with the creation of Cable Piece, which is a ring of iron made of 4,000 pieces of iron cable that measures 100 feet in diameter (Betty Beaumont: The Oceans). Inspired by the destruction of many of our planet’s fragile ecosystems, Beaumont’s pieces responded to the ecological, habitat, and biodiversity issues created through the dispersal of industrial waste (Betty Beaumont: The Oceans). Beaumont has created pieces that analyze the relationship between technology and the environment and the underwater pieces forces viewers to think deeply about the pieces and the effect they have on us as individuals.

The pieces are created to renew both the environment and our respect for the habitats we interfere with. The “Ocean Landmark” does not represent any specific subject matter. The piece was created for the purpose of being a new habitat for certain types of marine species. The entire piece is constructed along the continental shelf, which had been damaged by human actions. The use of the materials that were once destructive to renew the life within the area is symbolic in that we can continually use this process to renew life in the ecosystems we damage.

Betty Beaumont was born in 1946 and is a native Canadian. Formally educated at the University of California, Berkley and California State University, her artwork has been featured at numerous museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Hudson River Museum (Art & Technology Collaborations). Although numerous artists have created remarkable pieces during this period, like Diego Garcia and Frieda Kahlo, the environmentally conscious nature of Betty Beaumont’s work has stimulated much additional concern over the environment and our impact on the ecosystems and the animals in them.

The conscientious nature of her work and the use of materials that would ordinarily damage the environment as well as the naturalistic properties of her work have inspired my interest in her art and her ability to impact the world with her pieces. Works Cited Art & Technology Collaboration. 5 Feb 2000. New York University. 12 July 2011 . Betty Beaumont Ocean Landmarks. 2010. Greenmuseum.org. 12 July 2011 . Betty Beaumont: The Oceans. n.d. New York University. 12 July 2011 Travel.com. 2011. WWTE.

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