 Welcome to the Valley Advocate Podcast, featuring interviews that take us deeper into the people and happenings on the local scene. For more podcasts and a closer look at what's going on in the valley, visit us at valleyadvocate.com. Hi, my name is Dave Eisenstadter. This is the Valley Advocate Podcast, which Valley Advocate does in collaboration with Amherst Media. I'm here with Gina Beavers, our arts and culture editor here at The Advocate. Thank you, Dave. And we're here with Dara Hermann Sireline. Good enough. Thank you. Great to be here. Who is an artist and environmentalist, anti-plastic. Completely anti-plastic. And we're going to talk to you about your journey to being anti-plastic. But first of all, talk to us about your art. Yeah, you've got to show up. Where is it? Right now, I have a show up at the Hosmer Gallery at the Forbes Library, which I'm very excited about. It's a great brand. It's a great cast. And we're having an opening on, actually it's a closing, on June 27th, because the show is only up until the 29th. Okay. It's a great event, actually, because they're showing Casablanca that night. And they turned it kind of into an event, come dressed in the 1940s, you know, Rick-style. Nice. Bar. So it's become kind of an event there. Yeah. I've never actually even seen Casablanca. Do we ever talk about that the other day, as a matter of fact? Great chance. Well, yeah. And really, yeah, I kind of am looking forward to it. But yeah. Yeah. Right. But you... I didn't... I'm not a big fan. But you went to Pratt, right? I went to Pratt Institute. Okay. So your art is just a part of who you are? I've been doing art from the very beginning. I've always used art sort of as, you know, a poet writes poetry and a singer belts out a song I paint. Yeah. And my message out. And your messages. Well, right now, my message, my focus is the environment. But I definitely paint about a lot of important issues. Yeah. You paint out a quality. Big woman. Equality, gender, role models, you know, motherhood, you know, it's really kind of hits me at the time. Right. So, but the environment is right now the biggest. I've been painting about the environment probably for the last ten years. Yeah. What is it that sparked you? About the environment. Well, I used, I drink a lot of water and water bottles were a big part of my life. And I really just got sick of the whole recycling, you know, process and I wanted to find out really where do these bottles are going. And the more research I did, the more I found out that, you know, our recycling is not really working. There's maybe 9% of everything that we use that's a plastic item is recycled. That's not a big number. Wow. Yeah, it's, it's horrific actually and it's destroying our oceans. And I woke up and I went, I'm done with this. I'm done with plastic. I think my son was probably maybe two. He's 16 now. Oh, he's used to it. Yeah. So I try to be very good about it. He wants to go to Starbucks, you know, you have to be kind of find your way through this plastic nightmare without losing your mind, you know, because we're surrounded in the world and the world is everything is a plastic item. So we have to kind of go through this world trying to make choices. And my choice was to eliminate plastic from my life. Oh, man. That's like so inspirational and also you're bringing up this, I guess, fear that I always just tuck back into the back of my mind whenever I'm recycling something that like, are they actually recycling this? And you're saying it's like 9% is a horrific low number or less. Yes. Okay. So, you know, so the reality is, is that the recycling is really not working, which means that we have to be more aggressive with the planet by eliminating plastic from our lives on a daily basis. You brought an amazing visual. Yeah. Visual aid. I did. Can you show it to us? Yes. Absolutely. Crinkle, crinkle. Crinkle, crinkle. Crinkle, crinkle. Here is, and I put in a clear plastic bag so you can get an idea of what these items are. Oh, wow. Excuse me. It's everything that you can imagine. Takeout items is a huge problem. Right. When you go into a restaurant, you know, before you even get your glass to where the plastic store is in your glass, if you want it there or not, you know, it just, it's just out of control. We've gotten so used to the convenience of a plastic world, you know, that it's, we're kind of living for convenience and sacrificing, you know, the earth, the ocean. In the graduate, in the graduate win, uh, Benjamin. Oh. What was that? Oh, there's friends as plastics. Plastics as the future. Yeah. But it's also like a horrific future. Yeah. The devastation. I mean, you know, for me now plastic is just for people that are sick. That's why I look at it. Wow. There are people who, who they really need a straw because they can't suck down the liquid. Right. Well, that's what those stores should be for. Emergency. Hmm. I mean, I'm not, you know, saying that, uh, everyone should stop using plastic but I think that they really got to start trying. Yeah. So this is the, this is the result of stopping trying. So tell us how long, how many years were. This is a collection that has been with me. I moved from Belcher down, um, four years ago and I took that bag with me to California for a year and collected, I didn't know if the plastic was going to change on the West Coast. Yeah. I thought maybe. Yeah. Yeah. The plastic, I don't know. So I just started to collect there and actually I had a big bag of just balloons. Yeah. That are, you know, people use them one time. Congratulations. You know. You have a painting with that. Yeah. Yes, I do. Right. Because. There's so many things that are just one use only. Right. One time use items, um, for convenience, we just, we don't realize that when you're taking a bottle of water from the store that you're using it for, how long does you have your bottle of water for it until it gets warm and you don't want it anymore? Yeah. I don't know. Maybe an hour, the longest, but that bottle is living with us for 200 years. Ugh. And, and. It's not a very good trade. It's not a good trade and our recycling is only 9%. Yeah. So we have to start asking ourselves, where is that plastic going? And um, you know, people don't want to think about that. So with my art, back to my art is I've spent a lot of time researching plastic, the industry, how the oil business is involved in it, how all the business McDonald's and everybody is, has their hands really deep in this plastic industry. Cause it's an industry that started in back, way back then, plastics came out. Everybody was so happy. It was convenient. You wrap everything up and nobody thought about. Another petroleum byproduct. Yeah. Which is a whole nother. Right. And that's not a whole nother. Right. Podcast to talk about. Exactly. Yeah. About seven years in the end. That's seven hours. And we're just like looking at this. So it's like, so we've got the plastic forks, plastic spoons. I see like a Haagen-Dazs thing in there. Tabs on. You know, all your little. Yeah. Pull tabs on the bread. Extra safety. Yeah. The safety. Do you remember some 1982 there was like three cases of Tylenol. It was the Tylenol case, right? It started, everything had to be wrapped and sealed. Before that. It was 20 years ago, right? Yeah. It was crazy. Before that, you just opened something up. Sure I did. After Tylenol, it was 16 layers of safety. There hasn't been one thing since then. But I don't think it's the plastic that's saving you. You can certainly get in the bottle if you. There's like surprising things in here too. Like this cork. Like I think, I don't think a fork. That's right. But like, but this one is. It's a great business. They stopped making it out of. Out of cork. And now they make it out of plastic. Yeah. How convenient. You can stick it back in. Like I said, we're living our lives. We're giving up the precious world for our very simple conveniences. And you know, I can go on about this topic really and all the negative things. But I wanted to come here with a more positive outlook. Yeah. Because I don't think that this, that we're stuck with this. I think we can make changes. And that's why I make paintings like that. Yeah. I could come here and I could show you horrific pictures of turtles with hairs bleeding from their nose. I could bring you pictures of whales with stomach cut off. And their stomachs are filled with like 80 times of plastic. Right. So what I decided to do is if I drew paintings about them or I made art about it, that we're a little more creative and caught a little off that that might strike like an interest in the viewer. Yeah. Nobody wants to look at turtles with that look. Yeah. That's horrible, isn't it? And nobody wants to look at whales. Nobody wants to look at the albatross birds. That was my painting that you saw. Oh, the albatross. Yeah. They're very famous. They're a land like this wingspan and they live, they live so far away from human civilization, yet they're being affected by our plastic consumption. And really what this is all about is it's consumption. We just keep consuming. Do we really need so much? And that's what I want people to ask themselves. Yeah. What is it for you to give up that plastic bottle and take a tin bottle with you instead? You're saving money, first of all. Yeah. You really are. You're eliminating the plastic from the planet. And you're also whatever you, PCVs or whatever you're taking into your body. We haven't even talked about what kind of chemicals that are coming off that. I mean, I gave my son baby bottles from plastic that I boiled in water. Sure. Absolutely. If you would think about that and you think about the chemicals that are coming off the plastic, no sane mother would do that. One mother in the world that would do that. You just wouldn't. You wouldn't want those toxins going into your bloodstream. So there's probably a lot of that going on too. So what I say to people is just try one thing. Stop accepting plastic bags from your grocery store. Take your metal bottle with you. If you bought a plastic bottle and you're attached to it, fill it up a couple of times. Of course, I really would rather you not do that. If you are, you'll have to have your plastic, then, you know, you take your own silhouette. There's so many alternatives. There's bamboo. We have a lot of amazing restaurants in this area that are already turning over. They're already using alternative materials in a plant base. You can't even tell the difference that there are plastic cups. Tart bakery, for instance, everything in there is plant based. You walk out with something. You think it's a plastic cup, but it's not. It's plant based. You turn it upside down. It says plant based. So we live in a rich area where people are really conscientious. They want that change. I think it's lack of education. People just don't know. They believe in the recycle system. And I believe in the recycle system too. You just have to keep doing it no matter what. That 9% counts no matter what. But, again, like I said, try to eliminate. This is so informative too. Your own collection of your own garbage. I mean, I think that if everybody did it this way, I mean, I know that if I did it this way, I would be horrified at the trail I was leaving behind. You know what it is? We're humans. We're habitual. We're just used to doing what we do. And we love to have at least resistance. Right. And we are comfortable. We're so easily comfortable. So it's kind of comfortable to go to a restaurant and come out with a takeout plastic bag. You go home. You don't think about it. You throw it in the trash. You're not seeing what's happening on the other side of the world. You're not seeing what's happening underneath the ocean's surfaces. And so, again, back to my art, I don't show you those pictures because I'm hoping that my art is going to open up a conversation. Yeah, you brought some. Yeah, maybe we could make some room. It's not even... I think you've done a great job. It looks like a lot just sitting here filling up the table. But when you think six or seven years, it's really... You know what? Like I said, I was collecting balloons on the beach in California because you couldn't believe the one-time use balloons. Congratulations. Please, Navidad. It's a boy. It's a girl. McDonald's. We've got to get McDonald's responsible for using plastics. And me. Right, Leah. We haven't gotten to the meat yet. But we have to start getting these companies to be responsible because they're in control. If you get a plant-based story and you don't know the difference, you're still walking out with them at McDonald's. Yeah, right? So I feel like a lot of the businesses need to start taking responsibility if they want us to keep going to there. And there's a lot of people with campaigns and they're out there pushing for that stuff. This painting is not in the show but I had a poster of it so I thought I'd bring it in. Yeah. You want to hold that up? Can I hold that right for you? Yeah, nice. Whoops, sorry. You can hold it because it's not. It's just a copy. It's kind of reminiscent of the whale. It is. It's the whale and the albatris birds. There was a picture going around that showed the inside stomach of the albatris birds and it was filled with... It looked like this. This is what their stomachs look like. Yeah. I mean, if you go and you look up the whales, this is what they're opening them up and this is what they're finding. It's tragic. It's tragic and it could be avoided. So what were you saying in this painting? So in this painting that I did was I thought if I drew a human that maybe that can open up the conversation where people are saying, oh, that's horrific. That would be awful if that happened to a baby. If I was feeding my baby plastics, well, this is what it would look like. Well, that's what's happening to our wildlife and that's what's happening to our rivers and our waterways and the plastic is entering in every way it can. It's entering when we wash our clothes with microbeads and our shampoos and we have plastic in our materials. Which are those little tiny, tiny balls that supposedly make your hair somewhat cleaner or something but then they go right down the drain. And then they go right into your ocean and let's not forget that you're also eating it. It's like a terrible chain reaction. So the simple changes are don't accept the plastic bags. Grab a cloth bag. I brought you guys a present. Okay. I'd love to show you. Yeah. So we brought you... Oh, I read about these. Oh, goodie. Okay. So... What have we got? We got the... Because I'm very proud to be a Northampton person now. I've been living here for three or four years. All right. Because it's such a progressive place. Our mayor passed the plastic bag ban and we are officially a New England plastic bag town. All right. And this is for you. Thank you. I love Schwag. I love Schwag. I love Schwag. And blue. And that's the Northampton City Hall. Exactly. Make a great t-shirt. It's... This blue is psychedelic. Oh, that's really long. It's like popping out of my eyes. You could choose your color. I love it. It's vibrating, right? Yeah. So how will people get these? These you can contact me at my website or by email if you'd like a bag. I wanted to thank... We wanted to thank it was my husband and I. I wanted to... He made the bags actually. He's also an artist. His name is Peter Tseerlein. And he made these bags. And we were so excited about the plastic bag ban that we went to the town meeting. And we were like, thank you mayor. And we gave bags out to be supportive of that. We're hoping that Northampton is going to set the trend for all the surrounding towns. Yeah. Because it's such a progressive place. But even... I mean, even with this bag ban, there's definitely resistance still. We actually... We wrote kind of a funny story about a guy who wanted to challenge the mayor to a race where he would be carrying plastic bags and the mayor would be carrying paper bags and they would see like how... Did he have crutches? Well, yes. Right. Yeah. Because he was like that the paper bags would rip or something. But it's like... But beyond that, it's like there's all these things that you're talking about. About alternatives that you can use that you're not... But again, we're just creatures of habit. So if the bags are made available, then the people will take them. Yeah. If the bags are not available, the people will find alternative ways. I think whoever has this bag would win the race. That's what I think. If you have a cloth bag, you know, and I roll this up... I'm excited about this. You love it. I'm so glad. Let me see what else I have in my goodie bag. Wow, yeah. I see an advocate down there. That's good. I have an advocate. That's great paper. Well, we don't print it on... We don't print it on plastic. Well, that's an added plus. Yeah. Not yet. I brought you... And we will make sure that does not happen, Gina. I brought you... I knew you were going to... I brought also postcards. It's the same... Well, actually, I don't know if you saw this. I remember. This was in the show. That is in the show. And on the back of it is an alternative list to plastic. Oh, terrific. And it's really easy to... Oh, that's like used glass bottles, not plastic bottles, used straws made of metal or glass, not plastic. And then there's a whole list of these. That's terrific. There's also some resources on there, like the Plastic Coalition. And there's Beth Terry's book, To Live a Plastic-Free Life, which is a great resource. I think I brought that, too. Just to show everybody. Oh, terrific. Because you see my little tags in here. I'm still learning. Yeah. I imagine that it's a lifelong endeavor. And this is a great resource for anyone who just needs to... What do I do now? I don't have my plastic bags. What do I do? I don't know what the alternatives are. Yeah, I'd love to know what you personally have found kind of either difficult or maybe easier than you expected, going, you know, low plastic or plastic-free as possible. You know what? It was so much easier than I ever thought it was going to be. You know, it took the point of frustration for me. I was carrying, like, jugs and jugs of water bottles. I lived in New York City, and I thought, I'm not drinking the water out of the pipes. You know, they say New York City is the best water, but, you know, every time I turn on my pipes, there would be rust coming out of the best water. New York City thinks they're the best at everything. Well, that's kind of true. Some things are... Yeah, right. We have great water here, so... And there's no rust coming out of my pipes, but it forced me to buy water jugs, and I didn't realize there was a problem with plastic at the time. I just did what everybody else did. Went to the store, got my six bottles, brought them home, and every day I'd be finished with my bottles after a week, and then I was like, I had to take these bottles to the recycling bin, and I started to get frustrated. I'm carrying these jugs. I'm trying to put them in plastic bags. I just... This has got to be something better than this. And where is all this stuff going again is like, where is this going? So that started the investigation, and the minute I started investigating, all, you know, what does plastic do to your body? Where does the plastic get recycled? All their alternatives, you know, it changed my life. It changed my life instantly. So how many years? So my son's baby bottle, and I want to say 13 years, solid 13 or 14 years. That's so awesome. That's impressive. And I love this book. The look of it is like... I know, I know. Well, of course, it's done. All echo. Yes, right. And actually, my husband and I, we're coming out with a book, too. Oh, great. It's a children's book. It's called Don't Eat the Plastic. Oh, I love... All right. I got a kid. And another time, it's great, actually. And my husband's an illustrator, so he illustrated it, and I wrote it. And we're hoping it's going to come out in 2019. We have some people interested in it. Oh, so cool. And if that's the case, I'd love to... I want to get out there to the schools. Yeah. Because, you know, we have the schools. They put the little plastic. I was an art teacher for 20 years. Where did you teach? I taught all over the valley. Okay. Through an outreach program. Oh, okay. Outreach art program. I was one year at Waiteley Elementary School, as a full-time art teacher. And then, otherwise, they're what they call an outreach art program. And I traveled Waiteley, Conway, Sunderland, you name it. I brought art. That's cool. Did you get to indoctrinate your kids at all with their anti-plastic ways? This is a very tricky business. I have a son at home. Yeah. And he wants to go to Starbucks. And so, you know, if you want to kind of raise little advocates and activists, then you can't really... I'm living it. Yeah. So he sees it every day. You don't want to be pushing something on a young person because you want them to become an advocate on their own. Right. On their choice. So he came home the other day and said, guess what, Mom? And I was like, what? He goes, I bought a recyclable Starbucks cup. So when I go there, I bring my cup and they refill, give me the liquid I want in there. And I thought, good for you. That's a great beginning because, you know, for a while I was like, I don't really want you to go to Starbucks. But then I thought, this is not going to work. Yeah. This is now it works with teens. Right. And now he's really an advocate. He puts on his Instagram and don't use the plastic, you know, and that was just from being, you know, role models at home. That's great. Such good advice. It was a transition. First, I started my husband. I was coming in with his club soda bottles and I was like, no, you know, you can't come in with bottles. I'm all educated now. I know what we're doing. We just got to stop. Yeah. So it's like that. And now it's great. Cause now my friends are influenced. And that's my point. It takes one person to have a message when it comes to the activism and to get that message out there. And if you make a difference in one person, you made a difference. Right. I mean, you made a difference. One person doesn't have, I mean, this, I mean, I know some people have this in a week. Yeah. Don't get me wrong. This is, this is, this came in my life and I didn't want it to. Yeah. This was like, you can't, you have to go out in the world. You can't be crazy. I mean, my, my, I put stores in my bags and they end up in my, take out food. I put the, it's like a Jacob Marley kind of thing where you're like, screwed. And that's how I'm just like, these are the plastics I've forged in life. And I'll come and torch you at night. Yeah. A plastic carol. I mean, so the, the artwork comes really from, we wanted to get the message out there without being blunt. Yeah. I mean, I know this is very blunt, but somehow when you're looking at art and you see color and you're attracted to, you know, rhythms of color or of the way someone draws a style. And, you know, people don't even notice sometimes like in this image, like this underneath here, it's, it's all garbage bags and, you know, and this big tassumi and you don't really notice the bags. I'm hoping that, that doesn't really come through at first. First I wanted them to be, oh, that looks attracted to colors. And then you're drawing in and then you go, uh-oh, you know, and that opens a conversation and that's what I'm hoping my art's going to do. And that's pretty much in everything I draw. I was trying to see if I brought you anything else. What's interesting now with what I've been doing this over a period of time is people that are in this kind of thing is there, they're finding me. And they're like, can you come and talk? Can you come here? I am with you guys. You went to my show. International publishing and stuff like that. Yeah, in London. I've been published in Australia. I've been, you know, because these communities are very strong about, they're anti-plastic. You know, they're doing books in there. They want to do interviews with artists and they want to show the work. The beautiful thing is everybody has a common mission. So you could be a musician. You could be a painter or a writer and it's not even important. Right. Like right now, my artwork is, it's not, it's not important to me, the artist part. It's the message part. I'm not stuck on, I've got to get people to see my paintings. I'm stuck on like, I hope they're going to see what I'm trying to show them. So I'll have like students contact me. Like I had students contact me in California and said, that hit me, that image hit me. Can I use it? We're doing a green festival. I want to be able to show them that and can I use your work? And I'll do a poster for them. No charge. That's cool. You know, I'll send stacks of my posters with an alternative list. I'll just put it out there as much as I can. So here's what was done with this original image that I showed you for Golden West College in Huntington, California. Oh, that's terrific. Earth Week. And yeah, Earth Week. They had an agenda for the week and they asked for my art and I said, great. There's nothing better than when you can combine words with pictures. That's great when other people can combine the words for me. I know. And I don't. It's exciting. That makes it my job easier. Yeah. It's funny because I had a few people drop through the show and they said, oh, there were no titles and I wasn't even... I said that too. Oh, yeah. So, you know, I'm a little shy about showing my artwork. That's the truth. So I just kind of... You are? I am. I'm kind of one of those shy artists, believe it or not. Like, the mission has really helped me to show my artwork, actually, because I'm not one to... I'm not showy in that way. Right. So I'm not one to... I'm aggressive because I want to get the work out because, again, the message is so important and that's what that is about. Awesome. How do people find you? Do you have a website or what's your... I have a blog so you can actually write to me if you want and you can respond to my paintings always. That's what I really hope for because what I do is it's kind of more like an information I'll put down, you know, a resource you can go to once you look at one of my paintings and I want people to know that they don't have to look at this and feel bad. They can do something. Right. You know, the point is is you can really do something if you choose to have a conscious mind and if you want to make a difference. What's the website? How do people find it? MothersTime.blogspot.com MothersTime.blogspot.com MothersTime.blogspot.com But you know what, really, if you just put in Dara Herman's here line and Google, you're going to... Z-I-N. Z-I-N. You got that. Yeah. Oh, good. Z-I-E-R. I have faith in you. I have faith in you. I just... It's the German last name thing. It is. It's true. Yeah. So just put my name in and there, all my articles will come up and all my interviews you know, I'll cross the way so much. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'd love the show too. Thank you. And with Pam Acosta, that was really a great combination. And I really enjoyed the interview too. Great. And the article. Pick up the advocate and check us out in the paper. What you said. We're there. Yeah. Great. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening and don't forget to visit us at valleyadvocate.com. Thank you.