Sometimes, when I am daydreaming on my bike, I find myself pedaling down a side street on Madison's East Side.  The throwaway landmarks include train tracks, and the Madison Gas and Electric plant.  More notably, a pedestrian path hedged with wildflowers offers a straight-shot commute from residential neighborhoods to downtown.  But two towering, metallic ostriches catch me off-guard during an otherwise carefree bike ride.  

 

Once engines, gears and springs, these parts have been recoiled, welded and wired into industrial sized birds.  Standing more than twenty feet tall, and weighing hundreds of pounds, these birds supervise the path and the road, watching over bike riders and cars alike.  This form of art does not fit in a museum and it does not grow from a fresh canvas and a palette of oils.  More often, I see crafts from old or used objects, such as purses of erstwhile burlap coffee bean sacs.  Art in this form can be functional for a consumer and inspiring to a viewer.  To add a fourth term to our green mantra: reduce, reuse, recycle, recreate. 

 

For my birthday, an eco-conscious friend gave me a lantern made from old, colorful metals.  Some of the scraps still read "WARNING: FLAMMABLE," from the years of practical use as a fire extinguisher or perhaps an aerosol can.  Now I can burn as many beeswax candles as possible, conveniently reminded that the fire could be dangerous.  I am guilt-free and satisfied that the extinguisher was put to good use.  But since I really don't burn that many candles, I display the lantern as a piece of art.  I am inspired by the piece because the artist granted aerosol cans and extinguishers a new form and function. 

 

What is it about this lantern, or other recreations, that make it valuable?  I have already suggested that reusing materials promotes environmentalism.  Giving new life to materials allows them to be used more than once, saving time, money, space and resources.  Best of all, reusing products for artistic creations does not necessarily generate new waste.  This low-impact form appeals to green-minded individuals and art connoisseurs alike.

 

Recycled or reused art is most intriguing, however, because of the artist's role.  He or she inherently values waste management and low-impact design and many consumers commend this effort.  When I look at that lantern and see colorful scrap metal welded together, I understand the artist to be a spectator as well as a creator, or re-creator.  I picture him or her eyeing odd bits of trash, coming to admire that refuse, and appreciating it as an inspiring piece in its own right.  I imagine this as the first stage of recreation.  After manipulating it any number of ways, a new object emerges.  The artist found beauty in the least likely of places, and created space for others to share that appreciation in a new form.  Through recycled art, I see layers of beauty.  It lies in the original materials, in the artist's vision for the would-be trash, and in the recreated piece, as it exists before my eyes.  In the future, perhaps someone else will breathe new life into the fragments of my metal lantern, and continue the cycle of eco-art and green waste management.

 

Photos: allisoncochran.taylor/flickr