dump trois!

okay... and again!!!


"Paper Bags" Chris Jordan
1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags
60x80" 2007

after exploring Jordan's website i fell in love!! he focuses on social consumption. this piece represents the 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags which is the amount of paper bags that is used in the US EVERY HOUR! one doesn't realize how much of something people use until it is all stacked together like this. his other pieces also focus on extreme numbers of objects that represent amounts of consumption by people. while i'm not physically representing the millions of tons of paper being used in the US every year, I am trying to bring a focus to the amount of paper that is wasted and thrown away by using that trashed paper as my medium of choice.



"Dirty White Trash (with Gulls)" Tim Noble and Sue Webster
trash pile, 1998

another example of how trash can be made beautiful!! without the light being projected this piece looks like just a pile of crap being eaten by the birds (which btw is not good for them so don't litter people!), but with the light the shadow reveals a couple leaning back to back enjoying a glass of wine and a good smoke. its mind boggling how they were able to achieve such a crisp shadow with that trash!! i'm not doing anything with shadows, but i thought it was a really cool idea so i absolutely had to share it with everyone.



"Giant Styrobot" Michael A. Salter
polystyrene packing material
22' tall

yet another example of giving trash a new life as a work of art (and a really cool robot!). Salter uses the styrofoam out of shipping packages to construct his giants. not paper, not a tree, but still a fantastic example of being able to create art with recycled materials. i'm now starting to look at different recycled materials to help me construct the forms of my trees and covering them with the hand-made paper. oh, and according to Salter, himself, this is his largest styrobot so far. :P