The art collection can only be viewed on Isle Royale.
Mariah Reading can turn almost anything into a canvas.
She is an eco-artist who creates paintings and other works of art from garbage and marine debris.
“I go to different nature reserves and look for garbage and debris. Then I paint the landscape where the garbage was found on the object itself,” she said. “Then I hold it up so that it kind of protrudes into the landscape and photograph it so that it blends into the landscape.”
It is a statement about what people leave behind. She worked as a ranger on Isle Royale from 2022 to 2023 and her colleagues there knew about her passion for environmental art.
When Isle Royale received a NOAA grant for a project on marine debris in the Great Lakes, it was the perfect combination of their talents.
She and others collected items such as buoys, fishing lures and even an entire abandoned boat. Reading said Isle Royale is a unique park.
“It’s the least visited park in the Lower 48. And it’s very clean,” she said. “You know, the people who come to the park are stewards of this park. They love Isle Royale.”
But marine litter also comes from elsewhere.
“I think we’ve talked a lot about this in the Pacific and the Atlantic, where things come from and drift, but we also see it in the Great Lakes, the inland seas,” Reading said. “So I hope the project illustrates that many hands make light work and that we can all do our part to find things big and small and clean up after ourselves.”
All of the items she collected and turned into works of art are on display at “Supporting Superior: A Marine Debris Exhibit” in Rock Harbor on Isle Royale.
More art from Reading can be seen on her Instagram page.
