National Art Education Association

Beyond the Egg Carton Alligator: To Recycle Is to Recall and Restore

Author(s): Kristin G. Congdon
Source: Art Education, Vol. 53, No. 6, Enlarging the Frame (Nov., 2000), pp. 6-12
Published by: National Art Education Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193877
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 Beyond the
Egg Carton Alligator:~~~
To Recycle is to Recall~~~~~~

and Restore
I

BY KRISTIN (;. CON(

T" XT Then I was an elementary

jI1J art teacher back in the
v v 1970s, I saved everything.
In my two-bedroom apartment, one Z:
room was designated for "art teach-
ing materials." It became a storage4 ,
room packed with scrap paper,
yarn, tubes, cardboard, wood
scraps, bottles, and all kinds of
other things that most other peo-
ple would readily toss out. Almost
anything I saw was a potential art
project for young children. working with folk artists, who often use discarded
Although I intended to contain these materials, it seems clear to me that great amazement
"supplies," the contents of this room soon spilled and pleasure can be found in the ability some artists
out into the living room and kitchen. I saved these have to create something out of materials others have
materials because, like most art teachers know, considered worthless.'
traditional art supplies are often limited, and creating In recent years art educators have written many
new objects from things that are no longer useable articles about recycling junk and using old objects in
in their originally created manner has roots in both new ways. For example, Szekely (1994) reports on
modem art and everyday life. how objects inside and outside the classroom can
Years later, I become concerned that my projects have multiple uses for the artist. Taylor (1997), reflect-
looked like "school art," and I began thinking that I ing on Mierle Laderman Ukeles's Methanogenesis and
should concentrate more on drawing, design concepts, Touch Sanitation projects, asked her students to
and using "artist's materials"-pencils, paints, clay- "create a statement about how society values the envi-
media in which a student gains some "real ar't" exper- ronment in both a found object sculpture and a visual
tise. But I gradually came back to loving the things onomatopoeia (a word that looks like what it means)"
made with junk, especially artworks I could connect (p. 17). In an effort to encourage design students to
with in-depth cultural meanings. After two decades of think about how refuse can be used as art materials,

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 This is Sallie Jones's quilt story. It is a story of transformation, of making something
beautiful from material items that can be used again and again. While Jones has made
numerous quilts, all in an improvisational style, she has also created a rich life that she
has passed on to her children. This is what her quilts are about.

Elliot and Bartley (1988) presented a lesson with a focus on
human participation in ecosystems. The Instructional
Resources section of the May 1999 issue of Art Education,
written by Aurelia Gomez, gives art teachers excellent sug-
gestions on how to teach about recycled art that incorporates
issues of valuing and tradition. The list could easily be
extended. Most of these articles focus on recycling as it
relates to ecological issues and building community, both
admirable goals which, I believe, should be at the forefront
of art education's mission. There are, however, additional
reasons to focus on recycling in art education settings.
Gomez (1999) introduces some of these reasons in her
curricular suggestions. What I present in this article are
lessons I learned over the years-mostly from folk artists.
I have grouped them into four categories: 1) recycling as
self-sufficiency, 2) recycling as renewal, 3) recycling as
spiritual activity, and 4) recycling as aesthetic transformation.
All four ideas have to do with recalling (or perhaps reinvent-
ing) one's heritage or roots, and restoring balance and
meaning to one's life through the recycled creative process
and product.
The Act of Recycling
There is no doubt that the act of recycling is pervasive
and layered in meaning (Cerny & Seriff, 1996). There are
two sides to the recycling process. We recycle when we
place old bottles and newspapers in a designated recycling
bin, and we recycle when we make use of objects someone
else throws away.
Despite all the emphasis on recycling as an ecological
act, perhaps we partially misunderstand what is ecological
about it. A few years ago a New York Times article (Tierney,
1996) argued that recycling our garbage offered only short
term benefits to a select few groups including politicians,
public relations consultants, and waste-handling corporations
"while diverting money from genuine social and environmen-
tal problems" (Tiemey, 1996, p. 24). The article went further,
claiming, "Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in
modern America: a waste of time and money, a waste of
human and natural resources" (p. 24). In other words, the
day-to-day kind of recycling so many of middle-class people
engage in-saving newspapers, cans, and bottles for pick-up
and reuse-is done, according to Tierney, simply to make us
feel better about using so much. If we think we are helping
the environment by recycling, he suggests, we don't feel so
bad about participating in the rampant consumerism we have
in so-called developed nations. While there are certainly
recycling projects that are economically and ecologically
resourceful, it is probably true that many are not. The issues
raised by Tierney are useful. Seriff (1996) reminds us that so
many of the objects we purchase today "were specifically
designed to end up on the garbage heap" (p. 15). They are
intended to decrease in value so that we will have to soon
purchase a new one. The waste from our over-consuming
lifestyles, becomes the creative materials of the others,
selected both because of aesthetic appeal, symbolic
significance, and from necessity.
In 1991 the United Nations estimated that 2% of people
living in cities and poor countries make a living from the dis-
carded waste produced by the richest 10% to 20% of us. This
increasingly creative activity, however, has no boundaries in
terms of geography, gender, or nationality (Seriff, 1996).
Our acts of recycling are perhaps not as important in
sustaining or revitalizing the natural environment as they
are to connecting us to objects, traditions, ritual, and others.
This connecting activity that better sensitizes us to life's
experiences may also be viewed as ecological.
Recycling as Self-Sufficiency
When Sallie Jones, an African American quilter from north
Florida, talks about her quiltmaking, she speaks about
resilience, doing for others, success, and self-sufficiency.
Jones can converse for a long time about quilts without ever
mentioning the actual act of quilting or the artwork. I have
often heard her start her presentation with a story about
seeds. When she was young, she wanted to plant some veg-
etables. But when she asked for seeds to start the plantings,
they weren't given to her; she had to find a way to earn them.

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 Sallie Jones With One of Her
Quilts. Photo by Elizabeth Higgs.
Courtesy of the Historical
Museum of Southern Florida.
Page 6, Quilt by Sallie Jones.
Courtesy of the Historical
Museum of Southern Florida.
Since Jones's quilts are made with
recycled materials, she sees the act of
quilting to be like growing a vegetable
garden. The original material for her
quilts is purchased as clothing. It is
then remade into something else, in
this case her quilts, as part of the natur-
al cycle of cloth. Jones ends her story
by telling the audience that all her chil-
dren do something to help others; they
know how to be successful by giving
back to their communities and by using
what is available to them. This is Sallie
Jones's quilt story. It is a story of trans-
formation, of making something beauti-
ful from material items that can be used
again and again. While Jones has made
numerous quilts, all in an improvisa-
tional style, she has also created a rich
life that she has passed on to her chil-
dren. This is what her quilts are about.
Some creators say the artist's
purpose is to know how to give back.
For example, Mr. Faye, who is from
Senegal, explains that if he buys a can
of soda, he thinks about drinking it in
an unusual way that, when he is
finished, will help facilitate creating a
new object with a different use. So
instead of popping the pop-top, he
makes a slit in the side, sips the soda
out, and sells it back to someone as a
bank for coins. In a like manner, he
creates briefcases from used plywood
or boxes covered with flattened
aluminum cans (Roberts, 1996).
Even painters can be found who talk
about having all they need to create.
Theora Hamblett said, "I love the
countryside in Mississippi. Most all the
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places that I paint are right around my their artwork as a metaphor for recy-
home-near Paris, Mississippi. I have a cling themselves. Mr. Imagination
whole room of paintings in yonder of (Greg Warmack) from Chicago is one
memories of my childhood. Many of of the most elegant. In the summer of
them are set right in the yard lot of my 1978, after he had been shot and left to
old home place" (Ferris, 1982, p. 70). die in an alley, a surgeon saved him.
Self-sufficiency for Jones, Faye, and While he was left in an alley to die,
Hamblett is about having all you need, much like a piece of junk, he was, in a
things that you can touch, and things sense, recycled. Mr. Imagination not
that you know. From this abundance, only carves sandstone, but he makes
art is created. exciting sculptural pieces from old
Recycling as Renewal paintbrushes that are stiff and bent with
Both individuals and cultural groups use. His bottle cap pieces, for example,
view recycling as a renewal activity. can be made into a small fish or as
Many Mexican Americans, for example, large as a useable throne (Patterson,
use the yard as a multi-vocal space. 1993). Once, when talking to children
Ybarra-Frausto (1991) explains that about his paintbrushes, he explained
contemporary Chicano art has a fluidity that there used to be a problem with
that moves from one culture to another. lead in paint and that some apartments
This aesthetic is often displayed by still have it in the walls. He asks them
selected recycled objects placed in the to think about what happened to the
front yard, signaling the possibility of paintbrush that painted the wall. He
remaking one's identity in a changing concludes that children who are
society. Because so many Chicano forgotten are like these paintbrushes.
artists are attached to more than one Cubbs and Metcalf (1996) explain
geographical space, and often live in a Mr. Imagination's creative concerns:
neighborhood with a history of another "Like bullets, bottle caps, and paint-
ethnic group's culture, this transitory brushes, children have been used and
aesthetic makes sense. thrown away. And Mr. Imagination is
Several individual folk artists have interested in them all" (p. 54).
spoken about using recycled items in
Recycling as Spiritual Activity
Recycling, clearly, is not a new activ-
ity. As Cubbs and Metcalf (1996) point
out, there have always been bricoleurs,
those creative people who have made
something new and useful from what is
close at hand. But there is something
more pressing or imperative about
such activity today. Because so many
people live in our contemporary dispos-
able culture and so much is being
thrown out, we must consider the way
we value things, others, and ourselves.
Recycling is an activity that connects us
to history, to the use and reuse of
things, and to the experiences that
other individuals have had with the
items they throw out or leave behind.
David Butler, an African American
artist who lived in Patterson, Louisiana,
made whirligigs out of old tin. He
selected used tin not only because it
was durable, but because, in
his mind, it carried with it a
previous life. Having been
greatly influenced by his
mother who was very religious,
he felt that his sculptural work
was a spiritual act, created as
payment for the debt of his
wife's recovery from a grave
illness (Lewis, 1993).
Charlie Lucas, a folk
sculptor from Alabama, thinks
about the act of recycling in a
similar manner. He says, "It's
just castoff stuff people throw
away. Like people who've been
cast off, and everybody thinks
they're worth nothing. I've
been there. Beat up, broken,
down at the bottom. But I had
this dream in my head, and
that made me more than a
piece of junk" (Lampella &
Lampella, 1989, p. 220).
Taft Richardson is an artist
from Tampa, Florida, who "Horse
makes sculpture from bones. Americ
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Richardson is a minister, a community about recycling, and
organizer, an activist, and an artist, enough to remove you
although when you ask him who he is and oppression. Ther
he replies that "only God knows his carpet, old metal, soft
heart." He claims that his "inspiration wire, and discarded a
comes from the children," and he components in his ar
works with bones because "I can him (McEvilley, 1993
understand bones, even after they have Artists who are acad
been dead for a time." He speaks are using recycling-b
eloquently as if he is preaching and tions to give more me
tells me that, when he works with the For example, Martha
children, "our theme is art. It comes has studied African A
from 'Our Father who art in heaven.' So of cemetery decorati
art is part of it. Prayer is the other part." have communication with those who
For Richardson, creating is connecting have passed on, objects used by the
that which is living and that which is deceased are placed on the grave.
dead-and also connecting prayer with These objects are said to be "sanctified
creation (Congdon, interview with Taft by the labor of those who owned or
Richardson, June 29, 1999). made them." In other words, the spirit
Thornton Dial, one of the better of the person remains in the objects
known artists today, claims that being (Beardsley, 1998, pp. 94-95).
Black in the United States today is all Sometimes the objects placed on the
grave are broken. While the
term "break," for many African
Americans and in Caribbean
culture often means to let the
spirit out, it also relates to the
point at which the spirit may
enter (Gundaker, 1996).
Many cultural groups utilize
recycling as spiritual activity.
Often votive pieces are made of
recycled objects. One example
is the creation of bathtub
shrines by Italians in the north-
east United States. An old
bathtub is placed on its end and
set into a brick slab. The inside
may be painted powder blue and
a Madonna statue placed inside.
It might be decorated with
plastic flowers and set in the
front yard garden (Cosentino,
j
.Ii ,L:~ 1996).
j.
e Hope" by Taft Richardson. Courtesy of the Mennello Museum of
can Folk Art.
NOVEMBER 2000 / ART EDUCATION
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 Recycling as Aesthetic understand why people throw out the
Transformation things they do. He shakes his head in
Recycling changes and reshapes amazement and says, "All this stuff,
the world, and therefore the act of people throw these things away. I find
recycling may be said to bring with it, it and drag it home." In delight, he
implicitly, an aesthetic dimension. shows off his artwork, talking about its
"Domino Bill" by Jerry Coker. Courtesy of the
However, as Lippard (1995) writes, movement and how it catches the wind
Mennello Museum of American Folk Art.
some recyclers have explicitly and and the light. Although his sculpture is
consciously assumed the role of the protected by a barbed wire fence, he
artist. They actively and purposefully has placed it by the road so those pass-
use discarded materials because they ing by can enjoy it (Congdon, interview
see them as formally pleasing. with Melvin Thayer, May 17, 1999).
Jerry Coker, an artist from Often the aesthetics involved in
Gainesville, Florida, uses recycled tin, art-making from recycled items goes
not because he is an environmentalist, beyond formalistic concerns. Ybarra-
he says, but because he likes the look Frausto (1991) claims that in much
of it. (Congdon, interview with Jerry Chicano art "high value is placed on
Coker, May 23, 1999). Melvin Thayer, making do.... Limited resources mean
from Seville, Florida, has made a yard mending, refixing, and reusing every-
full of amazing whirligigs, most relatedthing" (p. 157). This leads to recycling,
to transportation. Having been in the and, when viewed within the Chicano
salvage business for a long time, it community, the tire that becomes the
just makes sense to him. He can't planter or the bleach bottles that turn

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 Melvin Thayer's Whirligig Yard.
Photo by Kristin G. Congdon.
into a garden ornament are found to be
pleasing, not only because of the shape
Melvin Thayer at Work.
or color, but because someone has
Photo by Kristin G. Congdon.
combined and re-contextualized items.
Because this same concept was
explained in another category, it
demonstrates that one way of thinking
about recycling often melds into
another.
Melvin Thayer, from Seville, Florida, has made a yard full
A similar example comes from of amazing whirligigs, most related to transportation.
Kenya where the Maa-speaking people
wear their art as body ornament. When Having been in the salvage business for a long time, it
they find something discarded they
like, before using it, they make sure it
just makes sense to him. He can't understand why
is congruent with pre-existing concepts people throw out the things they do. He shakes his head
of how a person should be adorned.
For one Maasai woman, it made sense in amazement and says, "All this stuff, people throw
to place a flashlight bulb at the center
of a necklace because it looked like a
these things away. I find it and drag it home." In delight,
traditional Maasai charm and the bulb's he shows off his artwork, talking about its movement
glass was reminiscent of water, a highly
treasured resource (Schildkrout & .and how it catches the wind and the light.
Pido, 1996).

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 Recycling in the Art Education
Setting
I believe that art teachers should
teach their students to make art from
discarded objects, but not necessarily
because it does anything directly to
help the environment. If students are
taught about the many layered mean-
ings that recycling can have for artists,
a viewer, and a community, lessons can
go beyond the "I saved an egg carton"
notion. The lesson can be linked to
culture, spirituality, heritage, transfor-
mation, the fluidity of life, the roots of
creativity, as well as aesthetic concerns.
Author's Note: I would like to thank
Suzanne Seriff and Aurelia Gomez,
whose work on the exhibition Recycled
Reseen: Folk Art From the Global Scrap
Heap at the Museum of International
Folk Art, was an inspiration. They
graciously met with me and gave me
information for this article.
Kristin G. Congdon is Professor ofArt
and Philosophy at the University of
Central Florida, Orlando.
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