I have seen Mary Donald‘s work at a few East Coast craft shows recently (Baltimore ACC and Washington Craft Show), and this year, I finally got to her booth when it wasn’t mobbed with enthusiastic shoppers and got a chance to talk to her.  Her work blows me away, both because she uses materials with such courage and because she has such a strong individual style.

In her statement Mary Donald calls herself an “urban aborigine.”  I am particularly drawn to her Jewelry II collection, which incorporates found plastics and inner tube rubber.  But all of her work has the same sensibility – valuing material for what it is and what it can be.  I appreciate her declared conflict with working with materials such as gold and platinum with connections to unethical mining preactices and human rights violations.

The images are engrossing.  The story is moving and complicated.  What is it like to work at a dump?  What happens when people who think they are stuck in a life “at the bottom” see a possible way out?  When Muniz uses the garbage haulers as his assistants on the images, is he giving them false hope?  Is it the little push they need?  Or will they become more desperate if the opportunity doesn’t last once he’s gone?

Lots to think about.  And…it’s available on Netflix (if you still subscribe!).   Enjoy

Today’s offering is:

Deb Kracht (Washington Craft Show, Baltimore ACC Show, Boston Craft Show)

Her amusing junkheads, blockheads, and fallen angels are particularly pertinent here.  You don’t have to search for the connection to recycling, but you do have to be in awe of her sense of humor.  Lots of people are doing this sort of work, but few are doing it so well.  http://www.artheadstudio.com/

The work runs the gamut, with some lovely pieces in every category.  You can find a lot of great images and information online at the link above, but here are a few of my favorites:

Check our William Knight’s Wall Tapestry (2009) made from tires found in New Jersey along the highway.  This work is abstract, like a 3D pen-and-ink drawing.  One can imagine how a single tire could have been shredded and stretched and rearranged into a wonderful netted maze.  Beautiful and thought-provoking.

Diane Banks’ Specimen #16 and #17 (2009) includes found plastic and other media like thread and paper.  These unusual objects and mysterious squashlike objects reuse discarded materials in a fascinating way.

Gyongy Laky’s wall-filling Alterations (2008) is made from apple tree cuttings, grapevine, nails, and wire.  It was the piece photographed for the cover of The New York Times Magazine’s “Green Issue” in the spring of 2008, combining a clear message (huge words made from plant materials) with meticulous and beautiful construction.  The tiny sticks are held together in a way that makes one wonder if it would fall apart if they were jostled, much like the “green” issue itself, under fire from a capitalist and consumerist society.

Enjoy!!

Enjoy this fabulous resource!

These images are from older work.  His recent work (on his website) gets more and more complex.  Enjoy!

Enjoy the flash mob video.

Happy spring.  Let’s put trash and recycling in the proper containers.

Use/buy less, try to purchase items with minimal packaging, compost, etc.  Baby steps….

Towering, tumbling crocheted (etc.) reef

The reefs on display at the museum were mostly made in the DC region.  Much of the work is crocheted, but all sorts of other techniques have been employed by the many hands that contributed to this extravaganza.  Most of the forms reflect and illustrate the basic hyperbolic geometry concept behind the Wertheim sisters’ original idea that jumpstarted the project.  But now some elements are created using any technique and material at hand – often recycled and often the culprits in trashing the world’s oceans and the reefs that live in them.  What started out as a project as much about crochet and math as it was about saving the world’s coral reefs, has become much more about the latter.

I find this project fascinating because it is such a beautiful and complete group project, and it can grow indefinitely.  The message is strong and the work is strongest as a collective, massive piece.  Each individual element may vary in (subjective) beauty and quality, but the overall effect is stunning.  The colors, whether garish or subtle can’t be wrong.  The forms can never be too fantastical.  And now, the materials can never be either too mundane or too precious.  All of those elements are part of the statement.

Plastic bottle and box strapping anemone

My only criticism relates to the way the work is presented (perhaps only at the Smithsonian).  This is a wonderful opportunity to teach beyond the basic message. While the work captures the beauty and diversity of the reefs, and the recycled materials reflect the  message of the human role in ruining the reefs as well as trying to save the reefs, the math behind the forms is lost in the environmental message.

Math is not an easy thing to present intriguingly to the public, and the project started as a brilliant starting point for just that.  As Margaret Wertheim points out in her fascinating TED.com talk, crochet is only one of many examples of how man and nature demonstrate this mathematical concept.  And although my brother pointed out (math geek that he is) that the forms aren’t actually a literal embodiment of the concept of hyperbolic geometry (just the first steps toward illustrating something much more complicated), such a spectacular visual springboard for illustrating the math should not be wasted. I would love to see a bit more wall space, and perhaps even a display case, devoted to demonstrating the relationship between the crocheted increases and the math they illustrate (or begin to illustrate).   I really hope that omitting this subject was not just another example of how many museums assume that their audiences can’t handle more complicated or text-heavy information.  How will we learn if no one tries to teach us?

All in all, however, it is a terrific exhibition, well worth visiting.  The Hyperbolic Coral Reef website is also still well worth a visit.  It also lists various other satellite reefs that have been developed around the world.

Honestly, some people will hate his work.  It is certainly busy and very plastic. The bright colors and jumble of it all can be hard on the eyes.  No question that it is a conglomeration of trash.  But Morgan often draws on religious imagery from around the globe, adds a wry sense of humor and biting social commentary, and comes up with pieces that are diverting and mesmerizing.

From All That Glitters, Spring 2010

A description of his work in the catalogue for his gallery show last spring at Institute 193 in Lexington, KY, describes Morgan’s work:

“Robert Morgan began his art career as a scavenger collecting photos, personal mementos and everyday objects from the homes of young gay men who were the victims of AIDS, alcoholism and drug abuse. These objects, regardless of their original significance, were routinely abandoned or thrown away by families that had little use for the remainders their sons’ lives. Blessed with a strong sense of curiosity and a perverse Midas touch, Morgan was able to turn those banal objects into works of art through a complex method of assemblage and adornment. Objects are wrapped, glued and nailed together – infused with religious and personal iconography – and then covered in a thick layer of polyurethane making them glisten and shine like glass. But all that glitters…

“Is not gold. It is garbage, junk, trash, detritus, personal, anonymous and all but completely forgotten. It is bottle caps, construction netting, baby dolls and caution tape. But it glitters all the same. The show’s title, All That Glitters… is an abbreviated misquote from Shakespeare’s original line, “All that glisters is not gold.” Morgan’s work is the result of a lifelong accumulation of tangible “quotes” – objects taken from the piles of what is left after their original lives have ended. These objects of all shapes and sizes make their way to Morgan’s studio and are reassigned meaning by the artist, assembled into the massive altar in the living room, piled in the bedroom or tacked onto a work in progress. Misquoting, re-purposing, re-inventing are the tools that drive Morgan’s creative process.”

Please visit the site for the All the Glitters show.  A virtual copy of the accompanying book is posted there, with many more images.  The work is truly extraordinary.  It expanded my idea of what recycling is and how to repurpose materials.  Here are a few more images.

Pangenia Youth, mixed media

Skull, mixed media