Grappling Grizzlies: When the Art Practices What It Preaches

Grappling Grizzlies by environmental wildlife artist Tracey Chaykin, a mixed-media grizzly bear artwork created with recycled paper clay and colored pencil.

Sometimes an artwork begins with an idea. Sometimes it begins with a photograph. And sometimes it begins with a pile of shredded paper.

Grappling Grizzlies somehow began with all three.

The inspiration came during a visit to the Oakland Zoo, where I photographed two grizzlies caught in one of those wonderfully animated moments that wildlife occasionally allows us to witness. Powerful, physical, and completely absorbed in one another, they gave me an image I knew I wanted to revisit someday through my art.

But when I decided to turn that photograph into a finished piece, I didn't simply want to draw the bears. I wanted to experiment. And, perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who spends a great deal of time thinking about conservation, I found myself looking at something most of us would consider waste—shredded paper—and wondering:

What else could this become?

From Shredded Paper to Grizzly Bears

Instead of beginning with a conventional drawing surface, I decided to make my own paper clay using recycled shredded paper. Now, I should probably mention that I had never made paper clay before. I had never molded it, and I had certainly never attempted to create a colored-pencil artwork on top of it.

So naturally, I decided two grizzly bears would be an excellent place to start.

There is something wonderfully liberating about being an artist and occasionally not knowing exactly what you're doing. Experimentation asks us to surrender a little control, trust our instincts, and see where an idea leads.

For Grappling Grizzlies, that meant transforming discarded paper into a moldable material and using it to sculpt the bodies of the bears, giving them a subtle three-dimensional quality. I created the surface over an aluminum backing with multiple layers of paper, giving the finished 16" x 20" artwork the rigidity it needed to help support the clay and minimize cracking. Once the forms were created, I used water-soluble colored pencils to bring the bears—and the original moment I had photographed—to life.

What began as shredded paper had become fur, muscle, movement, and eventually two grizzlies emerging from the surface. Somewhere along the way, my experiment with materials became something more.

When the Materials Become Part of the Message

As an environmental artist, I spend a great deal of time thinking about what my artwork says. Wildlife has always been central to my work because animals can create an immediate emotional connection to the natural world. We can read statistics about habitat loss or environmental degradation and understand them intellectually, but sometimes looking into the eyes of another living creature reaches us in an entirely different way.

With Grappling Grizzlies, however, I realized the environmental story wasn't only in the subject.

It was underneath it.

The bears themselves were literally formed from something that otherwise might have been discarded. That simple experiment reflects a much larger idea behind sustainable materials management: materials don't necessarily have to reach the end of their usefulness simply because their original purpose is finished. By considering the entire life cycle of the things we use, we can look for opportunities to conserve resources and reduce environmental impacts.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's waste-management hierarchy places source reduction and reuse ahead of recycling as environmentally preferred strategies. I love that distinction.

Recycling asks, how can this material be processed into something new? Reuse can begin with an even simpler question:

Is there something else I can do with what I already have?

In my studio, the answer happened to be grizzly bears.

Creativity Has Always Been About Seeing Possibility

Artists are rather good at looking at ordinary things and seeing something that isn't there yet. A blank sheet of paper becomes a landscape. A handful of pigments become feathers, fur, water, or sky. A photograph taken during an afternoon at the zoo becomes the beginning of a story.

And shredded paper becomes clay.

There is a lesson in that beyond the studio. We live in a culture accustomed to convenience and disposability, where replacing something can be easier than reconsidering it. Yet the materials surrounding us required natural resources and energy to produce. According to the EPA's 2018 national data, paper and paperboard accounted for approximately 23.1 percent of municipal solid waste generated in the United States. The EPA also notes that recycling conserves natural resources by reducing the need to extract resources such as timber, water, and minerals for new products.

But before something reaches the recycling bin, perhaps there is another possibility worth considering.

Reuse it. Repurpose it. Repair it.

Or, every once in a while, turn it into a bear.

Art as a Small Laboratory for Change

I don't believe every piece of artwork needs to be made from recycled materials, nor do I believe sustainability requires perfection. What interests me much more is curiosity—the willingness to question our habits and consider the materials we use, not only as artists but as consumers.

Could this be reused? Could I choose something I already own? Could a discarded object become the raw material for something else?

Could "waste" simply mean we haven't discovered its next purpose yet?

Those questions are increasingly relevant as we rethink our relationship with natural resources. The EPA describes sustainable materials management as an approach to using and reusing materials more productively throughout their life cycles while reducing environmental impacts.

That's a rather big concept, but sometimes big concepts become easier to understand when we can hold them in our hands. For me, that happened while standing in my studio with wet paper clay, attempting to figure out how on earth I was going to turn it into two grizzly bears.

The Story Beneath the Surface

When I look at Grappling Grizzlies now, I still see the moment that originally caught my attention at the Oakland Zoo—the strength of these magnificent animals, their movement, and their physical presence. But I also see the experiment: shredded paper that didn't remain shredded paper, an unfamiliar material that challenged me to learn something new, and an artwork whose environmental message exists not only in what the viewer sees, but within the artwork itself.

Perhaps that's what I love most about this piece.

Conservation is often presented to us through enormous problems: climate change, disappearing habitats, pollution, declining wildlife populations, and the tremendous amount of material we consume and discard. Those challenges are real, but our response doesn't always have to begin with something enormous.

Sometimes it begins with noticing what is already in front of us and questioning whether something has truly reached the end of its usefulness.

And sometimes it begins with a pile of shredded paper and the slightly ridiculous idea that somewhere inside it...

There might just be a grizzly bear.

Maybe creativity and conservation aren't so different after all. Both begin by looking at what is already in front of us—and imagining what else is possible.

Resources & Further Reading

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Sustainable Materials Management Basics An introduction to using and reusing materials more productively throughout their life cycles while reducing environmental impacts.https://www.epa.gov/smm/sustainable-materials-management-basics

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Non-Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Hierarchy Learn why source reduction and reuse are among the EPA's most environmentally preferred waste-management strategies.https://www.epa.gov/smm/sustainable-materials-management-non-hazardous-materials-and-waste-management-hierarchy

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Recycling Basics and Benefits Information about recycling, conserving natural resources, reducing waste, and keeping materials in productive use.https://www.epa.gov/recycle/recycling-basics-and-benefits

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Paper and Paperboard: Material-Specific Data EPA data on paper and paperboard generation, recycling, combustion, and landfilling in the United States.https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/paper-and-paperboard-material-specific-data