While a growing number of craftsmen are working with other people’s discards, Recology, a California resource recovery company, actually pays artists to turn trash into art.

“Crazy Quilt” by Remi Rubel. 1991. Built from bottlecaps and other metal objects.

In 1990 Recology began a unique art and education program. The company selected artists to work full time for four months in a large, well-equipped studio next to its transfer station in San Francisco. The transfer station is located within a 46-acre property that includes several recycling facilities and the public disposal area (aka “the dump”). Most of San Francisco’s garbage  is temporarily stored at this site before moving on to a landfill elsewhere in California.
 
Recology changed its name from Norcal Waste Systems in 2009 to reflect its corporate culture and values. More than a private, employee-owned waste management company, the company wants to encourage people to reuse material, think about new ways to conserve resources, and support local, professional artists.

“Mum — Sea Breeze” by Karrie Hovey. 2012. Made from books, latex paint, particle board, and a metal table ring.

Artists are selected by an advisory board of environmentalists, artists and curators; each recipient receives a $1,000 monthly grant to cover basic personal bills.

“Audrey Hepburn Dress” by Estelle Akamine. 1993. Made from foam sheets, plastic bags, six-pack holders.

At the end of each residency, the company holds a free public reception and exhibition of the artist’s work in the company’s studio. As visitors enter, they are confronted with a mountain of trash. They then see how imagination turns discards into meaningful objects. 
 
The artists roam the  public disposal area with shopping carts, collecting different types of trash. One may look for furniture, trinkets, photos and other personal objects, for found object collages, while another looks for raw materials such as wood, painted metal or wire for assemblage.

“3711 x 13510” by Zachary Royer Scholz. 2010. Constructed from pine and paint.

Some of the trash art is exhibited permanently in Recology’s three-acre sculpture garden atop a hill overlooking the San Francisco Bay. The garden is located between the garbage and recycling facilities and the Little Hollywood neighborhood. Many pieces from the program are also exhibited in office buildings, schools and other public or private spaces in the city. The garden is a stop for students on one of the 160 tours held throughout the year. 

A new exhibit, “The Art of Recology” can now be seen in the United Terminal at the San Francisco International Airport. Celebrating the Recology San Francisco Artist in Residence program, it presents over 100 works by 45 artists, made during the time they worked in the studio at the Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Facility. It will be on public view through October 27. Below are images of art included in this exhibit.

“Styrofoam Hummer H1 (low mileage, always garaged)” by Andrew Junge. 2005. Constructed from styrofoam, lumber and steel.

“Last Dive at the Farallones: 100,000 marine mammals killed per year” by Ethan Estess. 2012. Created with wood, Styrofoam, wood flooring adhesive, super glue, screws, and rope.

To learn more, visit the Recology website.

Nina Katchadourian is an American artist who works in many media —photography, video and sculpture, to mention a few. She often travels throughout the US and around the world for art projects and exhibitions of her work, as well as to teach, lecture and visit her far-flung family.
She began a series of photographs, digital images, video and sound called Seat Assignment in 2010 spontaneously, on a trip between New York to Atlanta. Instead of experiencing the flight passively as simply a means to get from point A to point B, she decided to use the time and space to create art. Her props were restricted to travelers’ supplies found on the plane and those she normally brings in carry-on bags.

The project comes from what Katchadourian calls her “optimism about the artistic potential that lurks within the mundane.”

After a year into the Seat Assignment project, in 2011 she began working on a series of Flemish-style self-portraits which she took in airplane lavatories, dressing up in costumes created on the spot. For instance, crinkled tissue paper seat protector covers became a lace-like head covering and collar; a case from the in-flight pillow became a hat; and her black traveling shawl became a backdrop. Trying not to inconvenience fellow passengers while spending 10-15 minutes at a time in the restroom, she did this when most people were sleeping.

A few Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style by Nina Katchadourian. Courtesy of the artist and the Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco.

Katchadourian prefers to use the a cell phone camera, with limited technical capabilities, rather than a standard camera because she doesn’t want anyone to pay attention to what she is doing.”I’m much more interested in looking like someone who’s just bored and trying to pass the time messing around with her phone,” she said. “It lets me get away with a lot more to do it on the phone.”

She reviews and selects images to be included in her series after leaving the plane. None of her images are significantly altered after they are taken. Other themes include portraits of people reflected in seatbelt buckles, images of her sweater folded to resemble a gorilla, and sculptural mini-provisional shelters from stacked crackers, used food packaging and folded paper.

Left to right: A Bucklehead Portrait, A Sweater Gorilla, and an image from the Athletics series by Nina Katchadourian. Courtesy of the artist and the Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco.

Katchadourian has continued to explore new ways to work with a limited number of materials while flying, without drawing attention to herself or what she is doing. As of March 2013, she has created thousands of images during more than 90 flights and discovered that many can be organized into themes, although she works on many ideas and different styles of images during one flight. She derives landscapes and unusual creatures by arranging images torn from in-flight magazines in a composition flat on her tray table — occasionally she will add orange peels, peanuts, lifesavers or other random textures — and then takes a picture of it.

A cross section of the entire Seat Assignment series can be seen in the above video and on her website. Courtesy of the artist and the Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco.

Sculptor Morgan MacLean sees beauty in then paper bags and plastic water bottles that litter our streets and landscapes.

Because most of us have lived with them all our lives and have become dependent on them, we take these carriers for granted. The paper grocery bag was invented in 1852 to make life more convenient for shoppers who didn’t have to remember cloth bags. Plastic milk containers and bottles became popular with manufacturers in the early 1960s because they were less expensive to produce and ship than glass bottles.

“Lucretia” – 9” x 7” x 16” by Morgan MacLean. The artist often names his work after the places where he finds the discard “models.”

Work in progress in Morgan MacLean’s studio.

MacLean has been interested in design and coaxing shapes from different materials most of his life. In high school, he was an apprentice in a glass studio. After majoring in sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design, MacLean made architectural models in architect Frank Gehry’s office in California, where he now lives and works in his own sculpture studio.

“Olive” – 5” x 4” x 4” (left) and “Warren” (right) 10” x 6” x 2” (right) by Morgan MacLean.

MacLean’s Urban Remnants series, an homage to the design and form of products behind our cash-and-carry culture, presents abstracted disposable containers carved in sustainably grown and harvested wood. His work, intended to raise public awareness about shapes and habits taken for granted, also has affected his family. Recently his young daughter handed him an empty container and said, “You can make this into a sculpture.”

“Catherine & Devoe” – 44” x 30” x 20” (each), by Morgan MacLean.

It is ironic that MacLean’s memorials to our disposable, mass-produced, tossed-out containers are painstakingly made by hand with hand saws, chisels and rasps. The process is also time-consuming: It takes two months of working at least eight hours a day to create one bag approximately the same size as an original — an elegantly designed heirloom representing our current culture.

Visit Morgan McLean’s website to see more of his work.

Sarah Turner, a British artist known for creating lighting and sculpture from discarded plastic soda bottles, is becoming known through her commissions displayed in popular public spaces.

Chandelier for the 2012 Olympics made from 190 used plastic Coca Cola bottles by Sarah Turner.

For the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, she created five 6-1/2-foot-tall chandeliers, one 29-1/2-foot-tall sculpture and fifteen 16-inch-by-12-inch floral centerpieces from recycled Coca Cola bottles for the company’s hospitality pavilion. The company was pleased with the results, and after the Olympics, she has continued to create more centerpieces for Coca Cola.

Turner is among a growing number of artists who prefer working with waste materials rather than unused ones.

“I find it a greater challenge,” she said. “I try my best to use as little new materials as possible in my work.”

Sarah Turner’s 29-1/2 foot sculpture for Coca Cola’s hospitality pavilion at the London Olympics. It is made from thousands of hand cut pieces of waste bottles and cans. The pieces are individually tied onto invisible wires in the form of a diver in three different stages of a high dive. The pieces spin when a breeze catches the wires.

As a child, Turner made things from discards, and the interest continued. In school, she began experimenting with plastic bottles and, because she worked in a coffee shop that served soft drinks, she brought home two large bags of empty bottles diverted from the trash each day. She elected to write a dissertation on recycling after studying Furniture and Product Design in college.

Floral Centerpieces from Coca Cola bottles by Sarah Turner.

Viewers may not realize that Turner’s work begins in the trash bin, because she transforms each bottle from transparent to opaque by sandblasting. “This makes the material feel a lot more high- quality and diffuses light well,” she said. She sometimes dyes the bottles bright colors and then cuts and sculpts them into intricate forms.

In addition to teaching part-time at Nottingham Trent University, where she went to school, Turner is currently working on commissions to create a large chandelier that looks like flowers and additional chandeliers made with melted plastic bottles for an exhibit, Eco Build at the Excel London in March. She will also exhibit at Tent London for this year’s Design Festival in September 2013.

Working with discards provides a double whammy for her work — transformed trash enhances the message propelling her works.

Art might not save the planet, but it can help keep it green.

At least that’s the philosophy of John Sabraw, who has launched the Green World Art website to promote sustainable practices in making art.

“The single global issue that I can have the most impact on is sustainability,” writes Sabraw, who teaches art at Ohio University in Athens, on the site. “Personally, my ultimate goal is to develop completely sustainable art product, practice and process without compromising any aspect of creativity or conservation.”

“Reverance: Aoede” by John Sabraw. 2009

He certainly walks the talk. Sabraw uses water-based paints and dry pigments and paints on durable, flexible aluminum panels usually used for exterior commercial signs. The frames are made from organically grown, sustainably harvested bamboo, sealed with formaldehyde-free clear coat. The light weight of the finished pieces also reduces the carbon footprint of shipping them to galleries.

Sabraw’s goal is to make his works and his life as carbon-neutral as possible, and to help other artists become aware of the impact they have on the natural world. The Art Offset Calculator on the Green World Art website factors in everything that goes into creating a work – from electricity and gas to power the studio to art supplies, travel and shipping — to determine how many metric tons of carbon dioxide were produced in the process.

Sabraw estimates that by creating 250 works over 15 years, he was responsible for 12.2 metric tons of CO2 emissions. (You can follow his calculations here. He also calculated that the Mona Lisa has been responsible for 3.55 metric tons of CO2, and he bought carbon offset credits from carbonfund.org to make the 16th-century work carbon neutral.

“Dust: Metamorphosis” by John Sabraw. 2010

Sabraw’s ongoing series of paintings, Chroma, explores natural phenomena, the earth’s ecosystem as a whole, and the role of humans within it, through the natural interaction of his materials. He layers paints and pigments with different viscosities, then allows them to interact with each other and the environment over days, weeks or months. The resulting abstracts strike a balance between controlled and organic processes.

“You have to give yourself over to being in the process itself,” he said. “If you have an ideal image in mind, you’re going to be frustrated.”

“Reflex” by John Sabraw. 2008

But Sabraw is also interested in interacting with the environment in a larger way. He has teamed up with a professor of civil engineering at OU to produce artist-grade paints from runoff from southeast Ohio’s many old coal mines. Environmental scientists have worked for years to clean up the region’s waterways that have become too acidic for wildlife because of contamination from iron and other heavy metals.

“The dream of a useful paint made from mine runoff remediation, whose sales can offset the cost of remediation, is one step closer to realization,” Sabraw told OU writer Andrea Gibson recently.

Sabraw frequently exhibits at the Thomas McCormick Gallery in Chicago and the Kathryn Markel Gallery in New York. His work has been collected by individuals, corporations and institutions around the world.

Chris Jordan has been a busy guy this year.

As part of the 2011 Prix Pictet Commission that he won in March, the Seattle-based photographer spent 12 days in Kenya working with non-governmental organizations that support community-led conservation and sustainable community development programs. He called the photographs he made on that trip “Ushirikiano,” a Swahili word that means partnership, collaboration, or community of shared interest.

Turkana tribal elder with traditional spear and club, and his granddaughter, Nakuprat village, Nakuprat-Gotu Community Conservancy, Kenya, by Chris Jordan. 2011.

In his artist’s statement about the project, he wrote: “The challenges faced by the rural villagers of Kenya are like a microcosm for the rest of the world; like us, they are called on to join in new forms of collaboration if they wish to survive and thrive in these turbulent times.”

Jordan’s interest in threats to the global environment are truly global, taking him from the parched plains of Kenya to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He began documenting the world’s overconsumption in 2005 with his series “Intolerable Beauty” and “Running the Numbers,” in which he created striking images depicting the staggering amounts of garbage created every day in the United States.

In his homage to Seurat’s painting “A Sunday Afternoon on The Island of La Grande Jatte,” Jordan painted 400,000 bottle caps to represent the average number of plastic bottles consumed in the U.S. every minute.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Jordan traveled to New Orleans to document the destruction on a personal scale, but he also saw that project as an extension of his work on over-consumerism, with the severity of the storm linked to global warming.

Jordan continues to explore these themes in a film called “Midway,” based on the photographic series that won him the Prix Pictet Commission, “Message from the Gyre.” The photos and the film document the impact of ocean-borne plastic on the albatross that nest on Midway Island.

“Midway: Message from the Gyre” by Chris Jordan.

The stark photos show the contents of dead birds’ stomachs: disposable lighters, combs, toothbrushes, bottle caps – detritus of the modern world that floats on the surface where they birds feed. The parents ingest these items, then feed them to their chicks. When the indigestible plastic eventually leaves no room for actual food, the chicks die.

Jordan says his purpose in making “Midway” is not so much to save the albatross as to help amplify the “urgent alarm signal they are sending us about the state of our world,” he told Outside Online in June.

“The birds on Midway are like messengers, the canary in the coal mine,” Jordan said. “When the canary dies, the miners don’t run over and try to save the canary — they receive the message that bird just gave its life delivering, and then act quickly to save themselves.”

The film raised $100,000 for production costs through Kickstarter in July. Jordan now anticipates a release date in late 2013 or early 2014.

This summer’s wildfires have charred more than a quarter-million acres in Colorado. An artist and photographer have launched a project to turn some of the blackened trees into art – and help local firefighters at the same time.

The Ashes to Art Project, the brainchild of artist Lori Joseph and local photographer Tim O’Hara, is providing artists across the country with charcoal from trees burned in the High Park Fire near Fort Collins in June and July.

“It was Lori’s idea, and I knew people who had lost homes in the High Park Fire,” said O’Hara, a fourth-generation Coloradan with a studio in Fort Collins. “I called the Bureau of Land Management for permission, and gathered up a couple of loads of charcoal.”

Then they sent out a call on social media to arts groups, galleries and artists’ representatives. In less than a week, more than 60 artists from 22 states had asked for some charcoal. The original goal was to have two artists from each state submit works, but after the initial response, O’Hara and Joseph increased that to three per state.

There are no restrictions on how the charcoal can be used; works can be either two- or three-dimensional.

“The works don’t have be done 100 percent with charcoal,” O’Hara explained. “You can sign a watercolor with it if you want, but the work has to incorporated it somehow.”

The deadline to submit Ashes to Art works is Sept. 30. Then an online auction will be held Oct. 7 to 14, with the proceeds going to the volunteer Poudre Canyon Fire Protection District to repair and replace equipment used in fighting the fire.

O’Hara and Joseph also plan to photograph all the artwork for a book to sell, with those proceeds also going to the fire district.

For more information or to request charcoal for a work of art, contact TheAshesToArtProject@gmail.com, or call Joseph at 570-337-3010.

Aliza Lelah (born 1982) is a painter and photographer who has exhibited her work across the U.S. and Europe. By accident, she developed a unique approach to fabric collage when working on an MFA in painting at the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2007.

“Time Makes History of Us” by Aliza Lelah. 2007. 27” x 16”.

For her thesis, she originally planned to paint a series of portraits of relatives — most of whom she had never met — but decided to change the medium. She discovered painting “wasn’t achieving what I needed it to achieve,” she said. Instead, she developed impressionistic compositions from old family photographs realized with bits of cloth used like brush strokes.

L: “Drowning Brother (I Saved Him)” 2008. 36” x 18” R: Detail: “Drowning Brother (I Saved Him)” 2008. 36” x 18”

Forms were developed by hand-stitching small strips of recycled fabric scraps from her personal collection and old clothing from friends. She created depth on her figures by sewing pieces of cloth on top of one another.  “The fabric brings its own memories and nostalgia to my projects,” she said.

“After the Wreck” by Aliza Lelah. 2011. 27” x 28”

When each image is finished, Lelah traces the shape on ¼-inch thick wood backing and cuts it out with a jigsaw. She stretches the collage over the frame and stitches cotton backing to it.

“The Stinkier Cheese” by Aliza Lelah. 2008. 12” x 12”

Although the technique is time consuming, Lelah, who now teaches drawing at Metropolitan State University in Denver, continues to explore the medium of shaped fabric collages and develops new works from personal photographs or pictures found on eBay.

“L and C” by Aliza Lelah. 2011. 14” x 13”

While working on the images, she discovers a personal relationship to each and develops different techniques to reveal the subject.

To learn more, visit her website.

Jimmy Descant understands change. A lifelong resident of New Orleans, he spent 15 years performing mostly behind-the-scenes work in the music business, for both underground and better-known bands. In 1996 he found a 1952 Kenmore vacuum cleaner in a flea market, deconstructed it and rearranged the parts into a retro-rocket sculpture. Pleased with the result, Descant bought a drill press and left his job to create his deluxe rocketships.

“I don’t do any welding in my work,” explained Descant, who has no art background or training. “Everything is bolted together so that it creates a look of the golden age of American manufacturing, Art Deco, and sci-fi when it was mostly imagination and not computer graphics.”  He said he finds “just the right components to fit together and be bolted or screwed in to look like they’ve never been apart.”

By 2005, Descant had developed his art and a career when he and his wife lost their home, belongings, all his early art works, a collection of other art and his shop filled with tools and raw materials to Hurricane Katrina. They decided to leave New Orleans for good.

“The Baker Happier Hunting Grounds Deluxe Model” by Jimmy Descant. Made from an old brass code Morse code signal lamp from a navy ship. The base is a beauty shop chair stand, the front an old lamp and beehive hair dryer and the rear, an office chair base, fan and parts, and an old Pontiac chief hood ornament (1939 or 1940). 5.5 ft. high x 8 ft. long. 400 lbs. Included in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum permanent collection.

The couple traveled to an art festival in Colorado where they met a developer who was renovating older buildings near the Denver city core into themed, boutique apartments. He commissioned Descant to provide art inside and out on the Rocket building near City Park.

“VR Azure Electro-Andromeda” by Jimmy Descant. 1950’s Electrolux with 1960’s Valiant grill wings, on weight reducing machine stand.

The developer also provided the artist and his spouse a place to stay and work while they looked for a new home — which they found in the artsy little town of Salida, Colorado, on the Arkansas River.

“Robot Heart” by Jimmy Descant. Private Collection.

Along with his free-standing sculptures, Descant creates assemblages he calls “cypressionist paintings”: sculptures mounted on flat surfaces, such table tops turned upside down, designed to be hung on the wall like paintings. Components include metal pieces found on parking lots and curbsides.

“Deluxe Cowboy/Indian Rocket Bike” by Jimmy Descant. Installed at the Iron Horse Tap Room in Washington, DC.

Descant’s decision to work with materials culled from outdated appliances and scrap metal is not a solely artistic one. He describes himself as a “severe recycler” and avidly condemns “the horrible waste of today’s terrible cheap products.”

Jimmy Descant with one of his sculptures.

His work is included in varied collections, including the American Visionary Art Museum; Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum in Florida and  South Korea; The Mayo Clinic; and Washington, DC’s Rocket Bar (which was named after his work).

For a schedule of his 2012 exhibits and Instant Art events where he creates a sculpture on the fly, visit his website.

Lucas, Kansas, population 407, is located 114 miles from Wichita (its largest neighbor).  Although the quirky town is way off the beaten track in north-central Kansas,  it is a tourist destination — 10,000 people come by each year to see the art in residents’  backyard galleries of folk art.

In 1996, Governor Bill Grave named Lucas the “Grassroots Art Capital of Kansas” due to the large number of “yard environments.” Today Today the town boasts a resource center for 90 such collections, created by self-taught artists in Lucas, most over the age of 65.

The Grassroots Art Center in Lucas was established in the early 1990s to document  folk art in Kansas, and the Midwest.

“We are a magnet for self-taught artists…residents move into an art career after they retire from 9-5 office jobs,” explained Center Director Rosslyn Schultz.

Most make their art from recycled materials lying around the house. When their homes’ indoor space is used up, they put art into their front and backyards, which are open to the public.

Lucas has a long history of residents-turned-outsider artists.  Between 1905 and 1927, Samuel P. Dinsmoor, a retired teacher, who had served in the Civil War, created “The Garden of Eden.” The Garden consists of a “log cabin” — a ten-room house built of local limestone which he painted — and a landscaped garden with over 200 concrete sculptures of figures from religious and political figures. The Garden is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Concrete statue of an Indian in “The Garden of Eden” by Samuel P. Dinsmoor.

West Facade, “The Garden of Eden.”

His work inspired Florence Deeble who, at age 58, built postcard scenes, sculptures around her home with rocks brought back from her travels. She continued to add to the collection for nearly 50 years, creating what is now known as “The Deeble Rock Garden.”

Detail: “Mount Rushmore” by Florence Deeble.

In 2008, 30 Lucas residents got together and decided the town needed a public restrooms for its thousands of visitors. “They said, ‘You find eccentric art in Lucas. We need something unusual,’”  according to Schultz.

Entrance to the new public restroom, Bowl Plaza, in Lucas, Kansas.

They settled on a building that looks like a gigantic toilet. Two businessmen donated the land for it; Kohler Plumbing Company, which supports outsider art, donated the two sinks and 3 toilets and a urinal. Nearly 75 percent of the residents volunteered their time and materials to make it happen.

Plans for Bowl Plaza called for mosaics. One retired person who had experience with the medium came from 30 miles away and showed people how to do it. Eventually everything was covered with mosaic. The floor is created from leftover tiles from individuals home projects in all sizes and colors. The town collected 1,700 bottles that were incorporated into the design. One man contributed his chess set while others gave jewelry they no longer used.

Details of a mosaic mural in the Bowl Plaza.

The plaza at the entrance to the bowl is sunken, providing an area for people to sit and talk. A giant concrete toilet paper roll unfurls outside as a stimulus for conversation beneath the toilet’s 14-foot-tall lid.

“Our lid is always up,” Schultz said. “This was done by volunteers and took thousands of hours to put together.”

The $100,000 building is almost complete and paid for by grants, local fundraisers such as the Great Toilet Seat Art Show and Auction, and donations from people throughout the country. To close the gap, the town took bids on eBay for the honor of the first flush of The Superbowl on the men’s side, on June 2 at 3:21. The highest bid was $265.

The public restroom was officially open for business on June 2nd after 3:21p.m. For further information, visit the Grassroots Art Center’s site.