Tag: climate

Celebrate World Reef Day with Coral Reef Apparel and Reef-Friendly Sunscreen

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June 1st is World Reef Awareness Day!

Coral reefs are a priceless ecosystem that support a quarter of all ocean life and protect our coastlines. Join me in inspiring climate action with my coral reef collection for the Glowing Gone campaign by The Ocean Agency.

Wear Your Support with Apparel

Woman sitting on beach in meditation pose while wear coral reef print apparel.

This collection took 2 years to create and combines my passion for climate advocacy and my body paint experience in a vibrant staghorn coral-inspired design. My hope is that the eye-catching design helps spur conversation about climate change; Conversation can prompt action and from action comes hope. Read more about the process in this blog post.

The fabric for this apparel is made from recycled bottles and is printed with non-toxic inks. The paper products and shipping materials are also sustainable, printed on recycled paper with soy-based inks. phone wallpaper displayed on iphonesTo ensure reduced carbon emissions, the products manufactured in the U.S and I offset the carbon from every order’s shipping. 10% of profits from my collection are donated to The Ocean Agency’s efforts in protecting reefs.

If leggings, bras, hairbands, or scrunchies aren’t your thing or you’re trying to have less stuff in your life, you can still support the collection with a digital download phone wallpaper or some stickers.

Protect Our Oceans with Reef-Friendly Sunscreen

World Reef Day was started by Raw Elements USA sunscreen. It’s a certified-natural, reef safe, environmentally kind sunscreen company developed by Brian Guadagno, a 25+ year Ocean Rescue Lifeguard.

Raw Elements sunscreen in metal tins sitting on a wood surface.

Raw Elements also happens to be the sunscreen I’ve been using daily for the past few years! They offer packaging in metal tins or bio-resin tubes. I like saving the metal tins and use them to store jewelry when I travel. Here are the products I use:

Glowing Coral Reef Collection by Breanna Cooke

Coming Soon: Glowing Campaign Coral Reef Eco Leggings and Bra

Using art to inspire others to #ActOnClimate.

Climate advocacy has become a recurring theme in my personal body paint work. In December 2019, I teamed up as an artist with the Glowing campaign, a global campaign using color and creativity to accelerate ocean protection and climate action.

Coral reef in the ocean glowing purple. Courtesy of The Ocean AgencyThe Glowing campaign was inspired during the filming of the Netflix Original Documentary, Chasing Coral and developed by The Ocean Agency in collaboration with UN Environment Program. In a desperate attempt to survive increasing ocean heat waves due to climate change, some corals glow in vibrant color. The corals produce brightly colored chemicals in their flesh that act as a sunscreen. In partnership with Adobe and Pantone, Glowing made this yellow, purple, and blue colors “the colors of climate action.”

I’ve combined my passion for climate advocacy with my experience designing visually impactful leggings, to bring you bold apparel that starts conversations about climate. I’ve used the Glowing colors to create a design of staghorn coral that will be printed on recycled polyester high waist leggings, sports bras, and headbands. The apparel is sustainably manufactured in the U.S. on 92% recycled polyester and printed with non-toxic inks.

Glowing Coral Reef Collection by Breanna Cooke

The apparel is part of my larger Glowing coral reef collection of t-shirts, greeting cards, postcards, stickers, and cork coasters. The goal of this art collection is to help people to talk about climate change and/or send a colorful card to someone who needs the nudge to speak up about climate action.

I’ve worked to make every aspect of this collection as eco-friendly as possible. All of the paper products and cards are printed on 100% recycled paper and most pieces in this collection ship in biodegradable paper packaging and shipping materials (T-shirts ship in recycled plastic mailer bags).

10% of profits from this collection will be donated to the Glowing Gone Campaign and The Ocean Conservancy to protect our planet’s oceans.

Let’s be the first generation to save an entire ecosystem.

Learn more at glowing.org.

Living Art America 2017 – 3rd Place at North American Bodypainting Championships

“Heal the body, heal the world” was the theme for the 2017 North American Bodypainting Championships, hosted by Living Art America. On October 14, 2017, U.S. and international body painters converged on Greensboro, NC to present our interpretations of the theme. We had 6.5 hours to complete our pieces and this year I was assisted by my friend and body painting colleague, Anja Yamaji. I’m so pleased to share that we were awarded with 3rd place in the professional category!

In preparation for this piece, I spent hours researching and brainstorming and eventually, a personal story emerged.  The final result became an illustration of my experiences from the past year. During the presentation to the judges and audience, I gave the following explanation as our model, Emma Dubin, walked the runway:

“This piece is about the analogy of a seed for healing our bodies and healing the world.

“Individual seeds need nourishment and care. Last year, I was dealing with anxiety about climate change and the planet and my body and brain were suffering for it. Friends around me noticed, and encouraged me to go back to basics with nourishing foods for my body. Next, I reconnected with nature through gardening and rediscovered the childhood joys of watching a seed grow. Like a seed, my roots were developing and I found that there were others around me who were concerned about climate. I participated in marches and saw the phrase, ‘They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.’ We may feel buried by stressors, but we’re still growing. I joined an organization that empowers citizens to reach out to their representatives in Congress about climate. I went to Washington D.C. with them in June and I’ll never forget the moment when over a thousand of us walked in front of the U.S. Capitol building on our way to meetings with our members of Congress. We were like a swarm of seeds, coming together, and lifting each other up by reaching out and supporting those around us.

“While I was in D.C., I also learned about Our Children’s Trust (represented in the faces on the front of the torso). It’s a group of young people from across the United States who have brought a lawsuit against the U.S. government to secure the legal right to a safe climate and a healthy atmosphere for all present and future generations.  Their efforts send a message that the next generation of seeds is rising up, changing the landscape, and actively seeking to heal the world.”

Scroll down to my photo gallery for more images and a peek at my sketches. The Greensboro News & Record’s photo gallery captured some behind-the-scenes of the event too.

Thank you to the 2017 judges: Craig Tracy, Robin Slonina, Jinny Houle, and Alex Barendregt. And thank you to Scott Fray and Madelyn Greco for organizing such a wonderful event!

Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter.

The caption with our names is incorrect. View the full photo gallery here: http://www.greensboro.com/gallery/all_galleries/bodypainting-championship/collection_587259b7-04f3-5600-9e36-873fd7c38db0.html#3