SeaCaps: Turning Plastic Into Art, Community, and Connection

I'm excited to share that I have begun applying for micro-grant funding to bring SeaCaps to life this fall here on Cape Ann.

SeaCaps is a community arts project that transforms thousands of discarded plastic bottle caps into a large-scale mosaic mural while inviting participants to explore creativity, environmental stewardship, and community connection. While the project will culminate in a finished public artwork, the real focus is what happens along the way: people gathering, creating, laughing, and working together toward a shared purpose.

The idea has been quietly growing for more than a decade.

In 2011, I learned that albatrosses (and other marine animals) were ingesting plastic bottle caps and dying from starvation. Around the same time, I was reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and became fascinated by the symbolism of the albatross—a burden created through human action. Plastic began to feel like our modern albatross: a burden of our own making and one we have a responsibility to address.

I started saving bottle caps with the simple thought that someday they might become something more than waste.

Over the past year, that idea has taken on deeper meaning. During a routine dental

examination, precancerous leukoplakia was discovered beneath my tongue. While many questions remain about the long-term effects of environmental pollutants, conversations with my medical team and ongoing research into microplastics reinforced something I already believed: what we put into the environment eventually returns to us.

As an expressive arts therapist, I also found myself reflecting on voice, communication, and the many ways people express themselves beyond words. SeaCaps grew into something larger than an environmental project. It became a project about connection, creativity, and the ways communities can come together to create meaning.

The vision is simple.

Community members will collect, wash, sort, organize, and assemble thousands of bottle caps into a collaborative mural. No artistic experience is necessary. In fact, some of the most meaningful moments may happen long before the first cap is glued into place.

Every person who saves a bottle cap instead of throwing it away becomes part of the artwork. Every volunteer who helps sort colors, rinse materials, or prepare supplies contributes to the creative process. The mural begins not when the image appears, but when the community starts participating.

The project is being proposed for Maritime Gloucester, whose commitment to ocean education, conservation, and community engagement makes it an ideal home for this pilot initiative. If circumstances require a different venue, the project will be hosted through my studio later this year.

Over six weekly sessions, participants will work together to create a large-scale mosaic mural on a durable canvas that can be displayed throughout the community. Along the way, we'll engage with environmental awareness, creative expression, sensory exploration, and collaborative problem-solving.

As a doctoral student in Expressive Arts at the European Graduate School, SeaCaps also serves as a community arts research project exploring what happens when people gather around a shared creative task. My work is particularly interested in the space between individuals—the unexpected conversations, moments of playfulness, and spontaneous laughter that emerge when people create together.

In expressive arts, this is sometimes described as moving from

Me → We → The Third.

It begins with an individual's concern or inspiration. It expands into collective action. Then something else emerges: a shared creative space that belongs to no one person and yet connects everyone involved. This is often where insight, joy, humor, and transformation appear.

Ultimately, the bottle caps become a metaphor for community itself.

Individually, each cap seems small and insignificant. Together, they create something that none could create alone.

As funding efforts move forward, I look forward to sharing updates, announcing opportunities to donate caps, volunteer, and participate, and inviting the community to help shape what SeaCaps becomes.

If all goes well, we'll be turning plastic into art—and creating something meaningful together this fall.

Example mock up of what a SeaCaps mural

Stay tuned for updates, grant announcements, and our upcoming

— Alison LandoniArtist • Expressive Arts Therapist • Certified Humor Professional