Beach Landing, from the Standing Still collection

Assemblage* (recycled phone books, tea bag packages, frozen juice can lids, hearing aid batteries, and oil paint)
From the artist J. Jay West, "I strive to bring awareness of the importance of our oceans, the blue heart of our planet. I'm inspired by the ocean and the ever-changing wave patterns. I am mesmerized by the translucent and glimmering color palette found when viewing the ocean from the shoreline. Beach Landing is part of my Standing Still collection. I feel we have reached a tipping point regarding the continued degradation of our environment. We are standing still in terms of world leaders doing the right thing for the future of humankind. We can go one way or another."

Jay's current highly textured body of work has evolved over the years. She manipulates wet paper pulp processed by recycling various papers to imitate ocean waves, then assembled with other recycled materials onto my canvas. Her process involves months of planning involving drawings, recycled resource procurement, then processing of the materials chosen. Once all the elements are processed and fashioned as envisioned, the piece starts to take shape on the canvas. Beach Landing includes abstract coral in various stages, healthy, bleached, and dying.

"Beach Landing" is signed and dated on the back, framed, and ready to hang.
*Assemblage art that is made by assembling disparate elements – often everyday objects. The use of assemblage as an approach to making art goes back to Pablo Picasso's cubist constructions, the three-dimensional works he began to make in 1912.