“When you put your hand in a flowing stream, you touch the last that has gone before and the first of what is still to come.”
― Leonardo da Vinci
100 Million Gallons
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The Delaware Contemporary
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Watching the Brandywine and Christina rivers flow through Wilmington, just a stone's throw from my home, it is easy to underestimate their importance in the Delaware environment. According to the University of Delaware’s Water Resources Agency, The Christina River and its tributaries (Brandywine Creek, White Clay Creek, Red Clay Creek) create a watershed which drains an area of 565 square miles in Delaware, Pennsylvania and Maryland. These streams supply approximately 100 million gallons of water per day for more than half a million people in the three states.
Unfortunately, pollution is the number one enemy of our clean drinking water. Microscopic toxins now saturate the river water due to decades of industrial, chemical and agricultural pollution. More obvious pollution can be found too; over the last fifteen years, the Christina River Watershed Cleanup group has removed more than 360 tons of tires, appliances and other trash from our rivers.
One of the more common waste problems that we see littering roads and clogging storm drains are single-use plastic grocery bags. The problem of these bags, which consume petroleum in production and never decompose in landfills, has reached our Delaware legislature, who recently passed a bill banning most stores from using plastic bags.
The 100 Million Gallons project is a collaborative project to promote environmental and clean water education, to invite residents of the Christina River watershed area to participate in a hands-on printmaking process, and to create a final large installation that references the river water and the ubiquitous plastic bag problem. Caroline Coolidge Brown will lead multiple workshops at The Delaware Contemporary, The Brandywine Museum of Art and the Delaware Nature Center.
The art project will create 100 monotypes using the trash most commonly found in the rivers: plastic grocery bags. Participants will learn about the printmaking process and help create prints to add to the final installation at The Delaware Contemporary, using plastic bags as material for printing.
Unfortunately, pollution is the number one enemy of our clean drinking water. Microscopic toxins now saturate the river water due to decades of industrial, chemical and agricultural pollution. More obvious pollution can be found too; over the last fifteen years, the Christina River Watershed Cleanup group has removed more than 360 tons of tires, appliances and other trash from our rivers.
One of the more common waste problems that we see littering roads and clogging storm drains are single-use plastic grocery bags. The problem of these bags, which consume petroleum in production and never decompose in landfills, has reached our Delaware legislature, who recently passed a bill banning most stores from using plastic bags.
The 100 Million Gallons project is a collaborative project to promote environmental and clean water education, to invite residents of the Christina River watershed area to participate in a hands-on printmaking process, and to create a final large installation that references the river water and the ubiquitous plastic bag problem. Caroline Coolidge Brown will lead multiple workshops at The Delaware Contemporary, The Brandywine Museum of Art and the Delaware Nature Center.
The art project will create 100 monotypes using the trash most commonly found in the rivers: plastic grocery bags. Participants will learn about the printmaking process and help create prints to add to the final installation at The Delaware Contemporary, using plastic bags as material for printing.
“Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.” 
In the first workshop for the 100 Million Gallons project, Caroline worked with high school students at the Delaware Contemporary.
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Caroline rolled her press downstairs and invited the March 2020 Art Loop attendees to make plastic bag monotypes which were then hung in the gallery.
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100 Million Gallons, The Delaware Contemporary Museum, Fall 2020 installation detail