What the #$**?! is Eco-art?

Often made from our trash, or made about our trash, really effective “eco-art” makes a sobering, or humorous–but always thought-provoking–statement about man’s precarious relationship with nature.  Sometimes, the work simply jolts us into recognizing the importance of our stewardship. Bottom line: if it challenges your view, if it inspires you to change—it’s successful.

I’ve been fortunate enough to curate eco-art exhibitions for corporations deeply committed to preserving the environment. I comb galleries, trade papers, and the internet, for eco-dedicated artists. I’m now a devoted fan of several elite environmental art visionaries, many of whom I’ve worked with over the last few years.

At the FORTUNE “Brainstorm: Green” Conference 2009, we showed the work of Tom Deininger, who transformed a truckload of consumer plastics into a stunning backdrop of New England Fall foliage at its peak. Check out the close up (left)–you’ll spot Barbie doll parts, old 45s, and other pieces of y our childhood, glued and screwed into a reclaimed wood backing.

At another online pharmacy FORTUNE “Brainstorm: Green” Conference, we exhibited Nancy Spiller’s tsunami wave of shredded junk mail (below, right) which she collected from her own mailbox for one year. We all watched the installation stimulate spirited conversations among corporate policymakers and dedicated environmentalists.

"The Junk Mail Project" Installations by Barbara Hashimoto and Nancy Spiller

To me, eco-art, loosely defined, describes:

1)    Art created from recycled or reclaimed materials, non- recyclable plastics, consumer or industrial waste.

I’ll be regularly spotlighting the trailblazers of this burgeoning art movement, and would love to hear about your own eco-art discoveries.