The Lardner Report

Unleash your creative superpowers!

An Artist’s Mission: Keep An Open Mind

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(Pic #1) My first foray into lawn gnome culture. Meet a rusty old rabbit named Mike.

About a year ago I set out to buy a lawn gnome for a colleague of mine. If that makes you chuckle, it did me too. I really just like the sound of those two words together. Say it with me: “lawn gnome.”

But I guess I was a little snobby about garden sculpture, especially if it was literal or in any way recognizable. If you follow my posts, you know I’m partial to abstraction. The less identifiable the form, the better. But part of an artist’s raison d’etre is to see—and help others look at their surroundings, everyday objects, and life around them. So dismissing any form of art deprives us of connecting, not only with art, but with innovative ideas and each other. Seeing something fresh and new is the best way to enrich our lives.

As an artist, I now know it’s my job to keep a completely open mind. So when I saw the rusty rabbit above, in a Carpenteria Nursery called Seaside Gardens, I had to have him — and share with you. Yes, he’s made from discarded metal trash, but I like his roughness, pastel stripes, and simple lines. And who knows, in a few weeks, we may be celebrating the births of dozens of rusty baby bunnies in our fragrant bushes of lavender.

Art Imitates Junk

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Left: (Pic #1a) Close-up, distressed trash bin. Right: (Pic #1b) Original hand-crafted glassware by Dale Chihuly

Finding art in the strangest places

You’d think my GPS would know by now. Most of my unannounced stops can’t be programmed in. They’re not even on the map. My greatest joy is to veer off the freeway toward the parts of town most people blitz past:  salvage yards, construction sites, or industrial plants. To me they represent a treasure trove of sweet images and exciting visual possibilities.  The dirtier, the better.

Last week on a little photo safari with my husband, we veered off Highway 126 in Saticoy, migraine California — 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles  — and bumped head on into an extraordinary municipal dump.

I spotted a worn, scratched, large red trash bin and grabbed a shot. (Pic #2) From a distance it appeared to just be a well-used metal waste container with no other particular value. But close-up, it emerged into a lovely pattern of scarlets, rusts and whites — just like the delicate hand-blown Dale Chihuly glass vessel seen above (Pic #1b).

Take the time to look. I promise these little prizes are everywhere.

(Pic #2) Saticoy dumpster: diamond in the rough

 

 

Environmental Art “Hits The Wall” In West Hollywood

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Eco-artist Tom Deininger transforms trash into artistic treasure in West Hollywood. Check out the “reflection” in the pupil–a junked white coffeemaker.

Local pre-school saves toys — makes art

Close up: new life for trashed toys

Hot pink action figure provides a pop of color

Yes, we’re talking trash. The kind you can reclaim, recycle, or reuse.  It’s what stirs the imagination of environmental artist Tom Deininger – and what inspired him to bring his unique brand of artmaking to “The Creative City” – West Hollywood, California. With Tom’s expertise in “all things tossed” we asked dozens of children at the prestigious Fountain Day School to save their broken toys for a few weeks, and allow us to “re-purpose” them into a wall sculpture titled, “Through the Eyes of a Child” on the outside of their school. We asked their parents to do the same with milk jugs, detergent containers, broken crates, and generally unrecyclable plastic. It didn’t take long for the collection bins to fill up.

Fresh eyes on the Fountain Day School, as seen from Santa Monica Blvd.

The relief is comprised of 100 % recycled materials, some salvaged from local landfills.

For a salvage artist like Deininger, access to a city dump — or any kind of waste management facility — means hitting the mother lode. Tom and I have worked on a number of “eco-projects” for companies like Fortune Magazine, and NBC Universal, but I had never accompanied him in his search for the perfect pile.We had an opportunity to “raid the refuse” at the Athens Services MRF (Material Recovery Facility) in the City of Industry, and you’d have thought the artist had won the California Fantasy 5. Tom found wonder—and possibility — in each passing container of junk. He extracted exactly what he needed, and began to plot: garden hose here, doll heads there — the perfect caldron of solid waste stew for a sculpture still in his head.

Through the artist’s eye

By pairing up oddball mixtures of color and shape, somehow, Deininger and his art assistants managed to smash, saw, and screw nearly a thousand minute plastic parts into a cohesive work of art. There is not a speck of paint on these two sculptures, though it may appear that way because of their clever use of color.

From a distance, the piece propecia shows the eyes of a toddler gazing upward, as if to a parent, or the future. A closer look reveals an intricate web of tossed toys and familiar objects that make up the image as a whole: action figures, baby strollers, pool toys, plastic trucks, and detritus from everyday life. A sobering visual message — underscored by the following facts from the eco-file:

  • Americans generate 10.5 million tons of plastic waste a year but recycle only 1 or 2 %
  • An estimated 14 billion pounds of trash – much of it plastic – is dumped in the world’s oceans every year.
  • Nearly every piece of plastic ever made still exists today.

For texture and depth, the artists incorporated tiny doll heads and plastic fencing into the larger structure.

Tom began with the simple shape of his own child’s eye, and added hundreds of layers of shattered plastic to create dimension.

Deininger redefines the meaning of “color theory”as he has discovered a way to “paint with plastic.”

Late night installation via scissor lift.

Dump-recovered plastics: Deininger’s preferred palette.

Recovered insulated copper wiring served as bendable lashes.

When Tom saw these massive fabric blocks at the dump, he said he wished he “could take them home.”

 

The artists chose a pink baby stroller (left) to serve as the base color for the left eyelid.

WEHO Council member Abbe Land surveys new work atop scissor-lift with artist Tom Deininger

More about Tom…

Deininger is a dedicated environmentalist who educates others about consumer wastefulness and resource overuse through his art. His award-winning installations incorporate trashed plastics, reclaimed wood, broken toys, furniture, and factory overruns – generally unrecyclable waste otherwise destined for city dumps. His work was recently commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution.

“Through the Eyes of a Child” is an environmental art project sponsored by Art on the Outside – a program developed by the City of West Hollywood’s Arts and Cultural Affairs Commission.  For more information, visit the WEHO Arts and Culture page.

A special thanks to: Mrs. Firestone’s Language Arts classes at Lindero Canyon Middle School in Agoura Hills, California, for enthusiastically collecting and contributing hundreds of discarded plastic caps for this project.

Photo Credit: Josh Kaplan, Executive Producer, Good Day L.A. on Fox 11.