Lucy Mattinson - 2024

Artist's Statement

For my final project I wanted to take the opportunity to teach people about what kind of environmental impact they can have, since I have learned a popular feeling in my generation is helplessness when it comes to this stuff. I originally was going to animate a video about the problems that come from the cattle industry and promote “meatless monday.” I decided to change that to a poster. I didn’t feel like anyone besides my classmates and professor would watch the video. I saw all of the posters up on a bulletin board in the art building and I came up with the idea to make one. I found an article that talked about some statistics about cows. It blew my mind to learn how much we could be saving. The problem is, as a vegetarian, so many people tell me “oh I could never be vegetarian, I love bacon too much” etc. It is unrealistic to expect the whole world to not eat meat. But it still helps to cut it down! I didn’t come up with the term “meatless monday,” I don’t remember where I first heard it. But I really wanted to spread this concept. So many people would be willing to make that small effort for a big change to our planet. And I drew a cute cow to go with it to catch some Aggies’ attention.