Artwork From Recycle Equals Conservation
Recycled Material Not Just For Outsider Artists
This is a field I have personally been convicted to for more years than I want to admit. I can remember displaying some of my recycled artwork back in the 1980's and having a lot of people just keep on walking. One quick glance at my offerings and people almost ran to the next artist's booth. I guess I was a bit ahead of my time. Not that I am tooting my own horn.
Many artists before me have taken the same stand. Producing phenomenal artworks from photography to sculpture. Using found objects as the basic materials for artworks is happening around the world.
In fact art had to actually begin from the very first human creation from a found object. This might actually be why we as a society had a tendency to scoff at found art over time. The more sophisticated we have come as a society the less was thought of art from recycle.
We encouraged the idea that it was less sophisticated than an oil painting or a marble sculpture. Now my intention here is not to take away from the fine arts but rather to encourage a positive mindset about art and it's relationship to conservation. It is the mass attention that has been generated over a concern for our environment that has finally brought this art form to main stream.
No longer do we look at Outsider Art as a way for crazy people to keep themselves occupied. In fact we have finally embraced the idea and can now see this creative challenge as another way to practice conservation. Not only does it help the environmental cause it calls attention to a very desperate need for change in the way we practice caring for our fragile environment.
Found Materials Can Become Artwork
Collective Partiscipation Helps Conservation
The more artists who take part in creating recycle art the larger the impact. Re-purposing and recycling can go a long way if more things were designed and used from materials that would otherwise land in the local landfill.
Architect Michael Reynolds has been studying and implementing ways to use all kinds of recycled materials in his designs for sustainable living. His creations are works of art that are inhabitable. That might be the extreme for most but it is a huge step in the best direction for conservation.
We can all practice smaller forms of creative recycling in our daily lives. Next time you get ready to toss a plastic bottle in the waste can, why not consider creating something artistic out of it? Who knows you might come up with an idea that will catch on with the masses and pave the way for all of us.
