Pink bubble wrap becomes high art

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, April 27, 2006

Nine yellow plastic bread tags.

Nine aluminum Blue Sky soda pull tabs, six blue, three red.

Three Wonder Bread bags.

Two pink plastic Baskin-Robbins milkshake spoons.

Two white plastic forks from take-out teriyaki.

Pink bubble wrap.

Telephone wire.

A full-sized hand mirror from Goodwill.

A wire coat hanger.

When artist Diane Kurzyna puts all that together, she comes up with a whimsical-looking gal and a piece of art she’s named “Wonderful Self-portrait.”

That piece and many others produced by various artists out of used wood, used paint, old globes and even discarded manual typewriters will be on display beginning Thursday during “The Art of Recycling” exhibit at the Monte Cristo gallery in downtown Everett.

The six-week show is also part of Art Education in Action. About 2,100 students from third through eighth grades will visit the gallery, see artists in action and be able to create their own pieces, such as making masks out of gallon milk jugs.

Yes, kids, you can try this at home.

“These kids are so motivated to create things,” said Nancy Bell, education director for the Arts Council of Snohomish County.

This is the fourth recycled art show the Arts Council has put on. The last was in 2000. This year’s show will include more than 40 artists working with recycled stuff they rescued from junk stores, trash bins and second-hand shops.

“The artists are not in it just for the gimmick,” said Carie Collver, gallery director. “They use recycled material because they know that it won’t go into the landfill.”

Artist Duane Simshauser of Camano Island keeps paint out of the landfill, along with old blue jeans and paintbrushes.

Gale Johansen transforms old globes with throwaway objects she’s gathered from thrift stores. Then each globe rests on a stand and looks like a big Christmas ball stuck in some tree branches.

Bothell artist Kim Groff-Harrington makes a figure of a woman out of recycled tins, baking pans, telephone wire and bottlecaps.

And California artist Jerry Mayer creates people from recycled typewriters. “He doesn’t weld them together because anybody could do that,” Collver said. “It’s all by hand. It’s mindboggling.”

Ben Smith’s creation of an enormous instrument is kid-friendly art. The instrument will be placed on top of the Imagine Children’s Museum roof across the street and kids will have a chance to bang on it.

The instrument was a big hit at Seattle’s folk art show Bumbershoot, Collver said.

“The kids were having a blast,” she said.

Reporter Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424 or goffredo@heraldnet.com.

Jenny Macc photo

“Wonderful Self-portrait,” Diane Kurzyna.

Artist Diane Kurzyna, aka Ruby Re-Usable, specializes in recycled mixed media. She describes herself as the daughter of a first-generation American growing up in Kearny, N.J, near the Hackensack Meadowlands, a place called “the dumps.” So she is “particularly aware of the ramifications of garbage.”

A Washington State Arts Commission artist-in-residence, Kurzyna says that “while making art from recycled materials isn’t going to solve the world’s solid waste problems, it is part of the reduce, reuse, recycle process.”

“Tootsie,” Shelly Hedges.

Hedges, a graduate of the Oregon College of Arts, lives and maintains a studio in Ocean Park. “I don’t consider myself an artist who uses recycled materials so much as someone who is interested in changing the context of everyday objects,” she said. Hedges particularly likes that her materials – used Tootsie Roll wrappers, discarded sugar bags, Equal packets – had a history. She believes that history adds depth and humor to her work.

The Herald/ Michael O’Leary

“Caged Circus,” Richard Gaeta of Shoreline.

“Winged Junebug,” Anthony Benning of Quilcene.