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Pick-up Artists de-litter the landscape in Quinnipiac River Park

By Carolyn Christmann

Photos by Ian Christmann

Desmond drags the broken chair from the water’s edge, disentangling himself from discarded fishing wire as he goes. Zoe aims her garbage picker at cigarette butts and bottle caps. Eight-year-old Roan searches the crevices for broken bits of styrofoam. While musician Adam dumps sludge from mud-encased beer cans, postulating about the urban archaeology of civilizations only 20 days past. Two hours and 12 garbage bags later, the ragtag group, playfully known as the “Pick-Up Artists,” sits together by the river’s edge, enjoying the scenic landscape so recently redeemed from blight, and turning their attention to making art.

Started by New Haven artist Zoe Matthiessen, the Pick-Up Artists campaign is part clean-up, part connection and part creativity. It is an opportunity for artists to come together and clean-up beautiful — but heavily-littered — public spaces, which made the scenic — but trash-laden — Quinnipiac River Park the perfect spot for the groups’ second gathering.

On a sunny Saturday in October, ten people wandered Quinnipiac’s banks with bags in tow, including Zoe and some of her artist friends, local community members, and a college student who drove from Middletown to join the effort. While not a large turn-out, the participants left no stone unturned when it came to fishing the debris from the tall grasses and crevices in the rip-rap (riverside armiture).

“It’s not easy recruiting people to pick up garbage,” says Zoe, whose own interest in trash began long before she formed Pick-Up Artists. “I address the subject of garbage and pollution in my environmental art,” she explained, detailing the irony in her drawing of a duck with a discarded chip bag stuck on its head. Not just any chips, she notes, the all-natural organic kind of course.

Like many artists inspired by nature, Zoe was deeply disturbed by the trash she encountered in New Haven’s parks and waterways. She describes sketching one day in East Rock, and the persistent distraction of a plastic bag flapping in the branches of a tree. “It drove me crazy,” she said. Not long after, while biking by Long Wharf, absorbing the beauty of clouds and water, she observed two seagulls on the side of the road, dueling over a piece of garbage. Distracted by its styrofoam-encased prize, the victorious bird didn’t see the approaching vehicle until it was too late. Watching the seagull get struck by a car was the last straw for Zoe. “That’s it,” she resolved. “I need to pick it up.” Soon after, Pick-Up Artists was born, and hit the ground…drawing.

Zoe’s idea was well received, with positive response through Facebook, ads and flyers. She partnered with New Haven Parks and Recreation, who provided tools, supplies and disposal of the trash, and received a generous donation of art materials from Artist & Craftsman Supplies on Chapel St, including paper, pens, and ink, all which were put to good use by the artists who lingered in Quinnipiac Park to get creative after their clean-up.

“We’re a bunch of weirdos,” Zoe noted as ink and conversation flowed among the eclectic group. Indeed the artistic results were as varied as their creators: Zoe’s detailed ink sketch of the view across the river, with self-described lasagna-style trees; Roan’s colored pencil rendition of the oyster boats, complete with waving American flags; Gabe’s pithy poetic statement; Adam’s angry political pen and ink drawing, adorned with an unfortunate, but somehow fitting, ink spill; Desmond’s precise study of a historic lamppost.

As for myself, though often a more anonymous reporter, I couldn’t help but be drawn in. I donned gloves and filled bags, and then — sitting beside the river I have long-known and loved, with friends I had just met — I embraced the creative moment with my own small tribute:

bag-laden artists
find satisfaction
in freeing the earth
from its blight.
uncovering life
that falls through
the cracks.
moments chewed,
uncherished,
forgotten.
broken needles,
crumpled bags,
fishing line,
containers of things
consumed,
weigh the upward
inspirationof cloud, light, water,
bird, flight,
with the gravity
of waste and want.

For more information on The Pick-Up Artists, please visit:
www.NHpickupArtists.org
facebook.com/nhpickupartist