 "Photo: Daniel Hernandez-Luna")
While senior Tiffany Ridenour was cleaning the Bidwell Bowl Amphitheater for her wedding day last May, she realized how badly the amphitheater’s natural beauty was abused with trash and graffiti.
Over the last year, it got worse with more trash, broken benches and a chair floating in the creek, she said.
It was then she decided to “tag it green” with her homemade concoction of green moss graffiti to cover up and make people aware of the abuse.
Ridenour, about eight months pregnant, spent two hours April 19 gluing moss on the sidewall of the amphitheater with a natural adhesive made of sugar, beer, yogurt and moss particles, she said. Once finished, she moved on to cover the tree embedded with sketches.
“It’s a natural force field,” Ridenour said. “It keeps things out, it keeps things in and it will deter people from wanting to carve things into it.”
Ridenour thinks the amphitheater needs to be respected for its beauty, she said. And it shouldn’t be used as a place to abuse the area and the human body.
“I think people need to be made aware of what’s out there,” Ridenour said. “I just want people to enjoy that beauty rather than just seeing it as a sneaky hang out where you can go around the corner and toke up.”
Her husband, Jason Ridenour agrees that the place isn’t used for the right reasons, he said. And this is because the police aren’t anywhere to be found.
“It is regulated somewhat, but it’s regulated only during high school lunch hours,” he said. “That’s all they really worry about — high school kids drinking beer or getting high.”
Instead, he thinks students need to get back to nature, he said.
“They just need to be more in touch with nature and realize that they don’t need to hurt all this,” Jason Ridenour said.
And it’s the nature surrounding the amphitheater that attracts others.
James Kuiper, art professor, enjoys Ridenour’s work and has only encouraged her to continue, he said. He also thinks the amphitheater has suffered some abuse.
“There’s more trash than there has been in the past,” Kuiper said. “I think anything we can do to draw people to looking at the beauty of our water shed and to the integral nature of plants is very important.”
Because she’s using all-natural materials, Kuiper sees no harm in what she’s doing, he said. Though she never got permission from the city, he thinks she shouldn’t be discouraged from doing what is needed.
“When we think of graffiti, we think of destructive stuff that destroys a vision,” Kuiper said. “I didn’t think it was destructive at all, and I didn’t think it was offensive.”
Since tagging the area, others noticed her work.
Graduate student Kara Scheitlin goes to the amphitheater to relax between classes, she said. Though she didn’t notice the tag right away, she found the idea interesting.
“I don’t come here on a weekly basis, but it does have a little bit of trash,” Scheitlin said. “There are always people leaving stuff here from lunch, but I think it’s mainly high schoolers.”
But others think there are other places that need attention.
Butte College sophomore Anna McPherson goes to the amphitheater to enjoy the scenery, she said. But she thinks this place isn’t as abused as others.
“There’s a lot more places that get taken advantage of,” McPherson said. “It’s a great area, and people should appreciate it, but as far as places that get taken advantage of, go to Butte Creek Canyon. It’s like people just bring up a car-full of stuff and just dump it.”
Ridenour is only half way done with her project.
She also plans to graffiti the water pump and cover the hollow stump with moss at the amphitheater, Ridenour said. By doing this, she hopes to create awareness and get a rise out of students.
“If somebody does want to come and try to stop me, I’ll put up a little bit of a fight,” she said.
Raelene Willis can be reached at
rwillis@theorion.com
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