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  • Artist Cindi Yager displays the two untitled pieces she entered in Artcenter Traverse City's Recycler Show. Record-Eagle/Marta Hepler Drahos

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September 3, 2010

Dumpsters dived, art created

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS mdrahos@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — One man's junk is another's inspiration.

At least that's the idea behind the "Recycler Show," running now through Sept. 30 at Artcenter Traverse City.

The gallery exhibit features two- and three-dimensional artwork made predominantly from ... well, garbage, whether it came from a basement, a junkyard or the kitchen trash.

"It just needs to be something that was going to be thrown away," said Artcenter President Mike Hyrman, who thought up the show. "The spirit behind it is to demonstrate that just because we might throw something away doesn't mean it can't look good and even end up as an heirloom."

Charlevoix portrait and watercolor artist Barb Clagett created a footstool from a pair of old Lee jeans and some recycled wood.

"Have you ever heard the term, 'dumpster diving'?" said Clagett, who haunts building sites for scraps for her Something's Afoot creations. "Builders throw away an awful lot of wood."

Cindi Yager's abstract mixed media piece started life as part of a kitchen cabinet that she found tossed out with someone's trash.

"The two inspirations I get are from the beach and Home Depot," said Yager, who painted the open framework black, faced it with torn acrylic-painted tar paper, and finished it with black nails, rusty bolts and a clay saucer. Hyrman said the show was conceived after he spotted an old tire tread while driving down a dirt road.

"It was very large and heavy but aesthetically cool looking," he said. "I thought it would be a good sculpture. I could picture taking it and twisting it and spray-painting it orange and blue."

Like the Artcenter's "Sketch and Doodle" and "It's Not Just Material" shows, the exhibit was designed to challenge artists' creativity, entice more non-members, and bring out closet artists like Yager who otherwise wouldn't be in shows, Hyrman said.

"We want to snag them and make them comfortable and bring them into the fold," added Patt Bennett, manager.

Yager has a bachelor's degree in fine arts and has been selling work by word-of-mouth for about 20 years. But she said approaching people about her art has been difficult because she has high anxiety. She credits her first show at the Artcenter for giving her the confidence to establish her own online gallery.

Clagett had never done a show in Traverse City but was drawn to the recyling aspect of this one.

"It's a fun deal," she said. "We love to recycle. I think it's an important thing that we're not so very wasteful."

Yager said creating something aesthetically pleasing from things others might throw away comes naturally to her. Her other entry in the show uses colored sand, painted twigs in a tar paper "vase," and an old chain link, among other found objects.

"But I think for a lot of people it's probably really exciting and a big challenge," she said. "It's something that's out of their realm."

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