Local artists put recycled materials to good use

PALMER -- If the old saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure" holds true, then the Valley Community Recycling Center is a veritable dragon's hoard of wealth for those who seek it.

A number of local artists and craftspeople have found alternative uses for discarded material, from simple utilitarian containers and coverings to full-sized wall hangings.

This practice involves direct re-use, following sanitation, of material donated to the recycling center.

Jim Dault, co-owner of Entheos Art Studios in Anchorage, has used scrap metal from the Community Recycling Center to build a sculpture outside the Sand Lake Fire Station in the city.

This scrap metal came mainly from discarded EMT pipe, aluminum siding, and truck wheel rims, sometimes called "wheelium."

"We just cut it all up, stick it in a pot, and heat it up to about 1,200 degrees before pouring it into a mold," says Dault. "The technology involved hasn't changed too much over the last couple of thousand years."

The Sand Lake sculpture depicts a volunteer bucket brigade, complete with cast aluminum arms and aluminum buckets.

Other studios around the Valley and Anchorage areas create Christmas ornaments from discarded light bulbs, containers and wall hangers from recycled glass and beads, and wall hangings from woven plastic bags.

Half Moon Creek Studios specializes in creating art objects from colored glass and bottle fragments, smoothed and placed on such items as small boxes and picture frames, which the studio then sells to the public.

Becoming a secondhand artist doesn't require years of experience, however -- just some ingenuity.

Scribbles Kids Art, an organization that promotes artistic development in children, suggests that young ones be introduced to recycling -- and to art in general -- early in life by using commonly discarded objects as substitutes for expensive art supplies. It's an inexpensive way to introduce children to art.