Summer 2005 In This Issue: Red Bull's Creativity Contests Trashasaurus Rex and More Web Citings Exhibitions Subscribe to Recycling Rag Red Bull's Creativity Contests Energy Explosion by John Crowley Photo by Scott Goodwin More than 400 talented artists representing 44 states and 11 different countries answered the call for the Red Bull Art of the Can Contest, a competition that challenged the Northeast's most imaginative minds to create original works of art using Red Bull cans. After much deliberation, Bostonian John Crowley and his inspired piece "Energy Explosion" won the first place award, a trip for two to the 51st International Arts Festival at La Biennale in Venice, Italy. Crowley's work seems to stop time. “Energy Explosion" is a metallic box that contains a can of Red Bull, frozen at the exact moment of bursting apart, with shards of aluminum and droplets of beverage suspended in midair. "I was inspired by the explosion of energy I get when I drink Red Bull," said the artist who is an abstract painter. "I've never done a sculpture in my life and this contest was a catalyst to come up with one," he said. What if Atlas Had Wings by Bill Wood Photo by Scott Goodwin The winners were selected from 400 pieces by a distinguished panel of four judges. Professional artists, students, grandparents and all of those in-between answered the call to use the Red Bull can "with a little inspiration and a lot of imagination to conceive a work of art." More information about the competition can be found online: http://www.redbullartofthecan.com. Although this is the first Red Bull Art of the Can contest to take place in the U.S., similar juried shows have been held throughout the world since 1995. Since then, 4000 pieces of art made from approximately 30,000 cans have been submitted to 26 exhibits held in 16 countries. Some entries even made it into the Guggenheim museum in Bilbau. To celebrate the Red Bull Creativity Contest's first ten years, 70 of the funniest and most interesting entries shown during the decade will be displayed in the glass "Hangar- 7" in Austria's Salzburg Airport from May 10-July 3, 2005. For further information: www.hangar-7.com. Phone 0043-(0)-662-21 97. F1 Car, 9 2001, South Africa. Photo by Jürgen Skarwan

Trashasaurus Rex and More

Marilyn Brackney, an artist who also taught art in public grade schools in Indiana, incorporated different media into her daily lessons: paint and clay -- and then expanded to trash when there was no money to buy conventional materials.

In 1992, she began incorporating trash into her own work. She used her family's trash and castaways donated by friends and neighbors as a protest when a District court forced Indiana to accept excess trash from the East Coast. Their local landfills filled up quickly. She decided to protest by focusing the public's attention on the lack of landfill space. This expression took the form of a 300 pound dinosaur, named Trashasaurus Rex, which is 9-1/2' tall x ll' long.

Trashasaurus Rex by Marilyn Brackney

She built an armature of used scrap lumber, chicken wire and a hose dryer for the neck; the belly is stuffed with 300 plastic grocery sacks, 40 dry cleaning bags and many polystyrene containers. T. Rex's "skin" consists of six layers with papier mache which is covered with thousands of castoffs -- broken watches, toys and jewelry, plastic bottles -- anything that could be attached to it with a glue gun. The dinosaur's mane, consisting of 50 stuffed gloves and mittens (one for each state), symbolizes that everyone in the United States contributes to the solid waste problem and each person has responsibility to fix it. T Rex wears farmer's boots which hide tin cans used to support the ankles. After T Rex made frequent public appearances in Indiana and Florida to benefit the environment, Brackney donated the dinosaur to the Rocky Mount Children's Museum of North Carolina honor of the 30th anniversary of Earth Day.

Working in the classroom she saw that using familiar castoff materials in unfamiliar ways had side benefits for the students. Through working with buttons, tin cans, coat hangers, junk mail envelopes and other odds and ends, students learned to see and think outside the box. To expand her classroom and reach more people, she launched a website, The Imagination Factory. It teaches reuse and recycling concepts through art activities using solid waste as a source of free materials. It provides instructions for 59 activites and also tells how to make your own Trashasaurus Rex. Later she produced a CD containing all 59 projects plus ten more in the category: Toys, Games and Other Fun Things. The CD, which works only on a Windows operating system, is available for sale direct from the artist. It costs $8.50 plus $1.06 shipping in the U.S. To purchase a CD, or for further information, contact Brackney by email: kidatart@kid-at-art.com. With the artist's permission, we have adapted a project for you to do in our Crafts Section.

Web Citings

Snag your next catch with a bottle cap lure.

Recycled Bottle Cap Lures Reel in Fish

Norm Price, a Canadian fishing guide, invented the bottle cap lure consisting of a metal bottle cap folded in half with three tiny steel ball bearings inside, steel rattlers and a VMC hook. It's no fish story -- the lure's shiny finish and its bearings' vibrations are proving irresistible to bass, trout, salmon, and any fish that will bite on a minnow. There's also a second benefit to the environment. Price said that while the lure helps catches fish it keeps thousands of bottle caps from cluttering landfills, rivers and streams. The lures are made from whatever bottle caps he can get from local bars and restaurants. Recently local Canadian university students and a few US scout groups have held drives to contribute more bottle caps. A set of 6 lures consisting of different bottle caps costs $35 USD (including postage). Order from www.bottlecaplure.com.

Custom Furniture Made from Classic Pinball Machines

Michael Maxwell, an award winning, third-generation furniture craftsman, has added a new line of cocktail tables, side tables, shelving units and custom pieces incorporating the play fields and back boxes of classic pinball machines to his collection of classic- style wood furniture. Stock designs in the new line cost between $1,500-$2,500. Custom furniture creation is also available. "In each piece, we feel we're preserving a little American cultural history," said Helen Maxwell, founding partner of the Maxwell Furniture Company. For information, http://www.maxwellsilverball.com or call 800-686-1844.

Exhibitions

Native Who Sold His Island For A Nuclear Test by Tony Price

Artist Tony Price (1937-2000) invented "Atomic Art" -- sculptures created from detrius from the nuclear weapons program he found in the scrapyard in New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory. A self -taught artist, he spent thirty years fashioning these materials of destruction into art expressing mankind's inner wish for peace. "Swords Into Plowshares," an exhibition presenting 20 of his sculptures was held recently in the United Nations. For further information on Tony Price and the exhibit, visit their website http://www.newartsweb.com/atomicartist/ or call James Rutherford, 615-500-8099.