One person's trash is another person's raw materials for art and you'd be amazed at what creative people can do with just about anything. I was. If you missed an exhibit called Trash Formations while it was in Manchester, N.H. (It closed May 4), you may be able to catch the show when it travels to someplace called the Museum of the Southwest in late spring and summer, or Knoxville, TN., from September through the end of December 1998. Teachers might like to take their classes to see this exhibit as part of a lesson on recycling.
Unfortunately, the show's organizer, the Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham, Washington, prohibits photography even by someone writing a review of the show. I called the Currier Gallery in Manchester for press information but a promised press packet including a public relations slide failed to arrive and I'm guessing it isn't coming. So much for PR.
The first piece of trash art you saw in the exhibit in Manchester was my favorite, an elephant (1993) by Jim Opasik of Baltimore, shown above (I scanned this elephant photo from a newspaper advertisement). This approximately 3-foot wall hanging uses 14 copper-bottom pots in descending order of size to form a trunk, two pastry bags for tusks, a pair of large oven meat trays for ears, and assorted other kitchen gadgets.
Next to the elephant, appropriately, was a 1986 rhino by Leonard Streckfus. About the same size as the elephant, this wee beastie is made of canvas fire hose (ears), golf balls (eyes), a kettle, tire (lower jaw), mailbox (main part of the head), tricycle parts (a horn), and wicker (another horn).
Some of the art included the following:
- a Blow-up bracelet with a pump (1996) made from a small black tire, by Eric Margry, Mt. Rainer, MD.
- a carved foot made from a brick (1996), by Chris Berti, Champaign, Ill.
- a big 4-foot warthog called Fury by Ken D. Little, made of baseball gloves, leather and shoes.
- a table made with tin cans for legs by Sam Verts, Arlington, Va. (1980).
- an Indian Necklass (1992) by Kiff Slemmons, made of pencils, silver, copper, brass, mirror and horsehair.
- a clothespin basket (1992) by Karyl Sisson from LA.
- and a woven Glad-bag dress, a bottlecap dress and a wedding ring apron, among many other creations.
While the art show in the Trash formations exhibit made direct use of so-called waste materials-the artists simply used the materials creatively; the more common approach to recycling waste probably involves processing the materials into a "virgin" raw material. Typical of such recycling are the products of two commercial outfits showing at the exhibit. Deja Shows Inc., of Lake Oswego, Or., however, has found a way to produce a marketable boot from a combination of soda bottles, metal, magazines, cardboard, coffee filters, file folders and tire rubber (obviously the sole). The company calls it the Disruptive Element Agitator Boot. If you saw it on a store shelf, you wouldn't know it was made from recycled materials. NorthFace exhibited a Denali Jacket of recycled polyester that you've probably seen someone wearing and which you wouldn't hesitate to own yourself.
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