Comprehensive Artist Research
MARY ELLEN CROTEAU
Artist, Agitator, and Environmentalist
Close, 2011. 8’ x 7’. 7,000 bottle caps. Seven months to build and two years to collect all of the caps.
Brief Biography
Mary Ellen Croteau was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1950 and currently resides there. She grew up in a working class family where she was the eldest of ten kids growing up. While growing up, the only art she knew was in books and in church. Today she has three children of her own and a supportive husband. Croteau’s need to participate in social activism sparked during the Vietnam War. Although war was not the big idea of her work, it influenced her developing commentary on religion, feminism and environmentalism.
Shells, Oil Spill, 2013. 4’ x 8’.
Ideological Adgenda
Croteau’s work expresses the intertwinement of all ideas. Environmentally, her work ties back to her original inspiration for social activism, which is war. She claims that Americans fight wars in Iraq for oil which is the material we use to create single-use plastic bags at the grocery store. She states that the blood shed is not worth the single use of a plastic bag at the grocery store. She also relates this single use concept to feminism. She states that we treat the environment like we treat women: to be used up and thrown away.
Wildfire, Alberta 2015, 2017. 4.5’ x 8’.
Work Space
Until recently, Croteau worked in Chicago, Illinois at her large studio space called “Art on Armitage”. In the window of her studio, there was text that read “people for art on the streets”. Given that Croteau had very little exposure to art as a child, she wishes to make art more accessible to everyone. Her thesis was about creating a method to make art more accessible to people of diverse backgrounds. Her large workspace not only provided her with the freedom she needs to think and be creative, but for others to undergo the experience of art making as well.
Current Work
Croteau is most known for her current work which depicts traumatized environmental landscapes out of plastic bottle caps. Each image is intended to provoke the audience to be conscious of their degree of consumption and make use of unrecyclable plastic bottle caps. Her current work embodies the ideology that we need to use less and respect the Earth more to save the planet.
Underwater, Atlanta, 2017. 5’ x 8’.
Process
When creating a plastic bottle cap mural, Croteau first gathers her tools and materials. For the base of her murals, she uses a particle board with pre-drilled holes that are one inch apart from each other. She also gathers the plastic bottle caps from her friends, family, and others in the community. This helps others become more aware of their degree of consumption and its impact. Once she gathers all of the plastic bottle caps, they are hand washed or put into a mesh bag in her washer where they soak and are then run through a gentle cycle. Before adhering the plastic bottle caps to the particle board, she uses poster tac to create a preliminary composition for a section of the board. Once she is satisfied with one section of the board, she adheres the plastic bottle caps using industrial hot glue such as Omni Bond. She claims that plastic bottle caps have various compositions and are not archival, but industrial hot glue is the only type of glue that adheres the copious variety of plastic bottle caps. Croteau continues to work section by section until her tangible method of pointillism depicts a clear image.
Influencers
Croteau was artistically inspired by sculptor Constantin Brancusi when she first became interested in working with plastic bottle caps and plastic jar lids. Before she created flat murals out of plastic bottle caps, she built tall columns that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Then she began to create two-dimensional flat works which depicted clear images. She states that Chuck Close also inspired her work as she decided to create large portraits out of the plastic bottle caps. She later realized the potential for communicating the significance of the plastic bottle caps by using the tangible medium to convey traumatized environmental landscapes through pointillism.
Endless Columns, 2010-2015.
Critics
“Sex roles are intriguingly redefined…”
Holland Cotter
New York Times Art in Review
“The beauty of Croteau’s work lies largely in the humor employed to deliver some serious trouble.”
Patrick JB Flynn
Art Editor, The Progressive
Above: Mary Ellen Croteau discussing her work during an interview.
- Croteau, Mary Ellen. “Home.” Mary Ellen Croteau, www.maryellencroteau.net/.
- Luther, Elaine. “Mary Ellen Croteau: Artist, Agitator and Environmentalist.” Moore Women Artists, 14 July 2016, moorewomenartists.org/mary-ellen-croteau-artist-agitator-environmentalist/.
References
Brochure
To the right is a PDF file of the extensive research I have done in the form of a brochure.