Friday, May 15, 2015

Garbage Art: Dogs and Beachcombers

Thank goodness---I woke up this morning eager to get going on the proposal. Sometimes (but not always) it goes this way: just when I feel most mired in procrastination, my energy pops back up.

Here are a couple neat pieces of art about garbage:


I. I like this one because of the rag-picker's dogs, who, unlike the woman, look like they're in good health. I suppose they gets lots of juicy garbage to eat?


"Arrested Rag-Pickers in City Hall Park, New York, sketched by C.G. Bush", Harper's Weekly,  July 6, 1867
---from the Library of Congress


II. These bits of rulers cast up by the sea are as beautiful in their way as beach glass.

Above: "28 Objects that Measured the World," by artist Steve McPherson

From the Anchorage Museum's exhibit "Gyre: The Plastic Ocean":

"Steve...combines and arranges found objects from his local coast, with a summary text that gives a potential identity and history to the collated flotsam and jetsam." 

4 comments:

  1. I love that art piece! But I have a weakness for sea glass and rulers and "objective" art displays like that one, so it's no surprise.

    Just had insight into two very sheer cotton shirts I haven't been wearing (both from rag bin) because they are already holey--they're supposed to be Fresca bags, for fresca fruits and veggies! :)

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  2. JULIA: Success! I chose that "28 Objects" piece because I thought it looked like *your* sort of thing.
    (Of course it's my sort of thing too, but I might have chosen something else from the exhibit if not for hoping you'd see and like this.)

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  3. Dog carts, there are even photos of these.

    I remember on beaches in the Detroit River finding scoured green glass, pop bottles turned into natural art.

    Rag and bone men, something lost in living memory.

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  4. I wonder if all those rulers were actually lost at sea? Someone is charting their course--and BAM!--a big wave flows over their ship, stealing their ruler?

    Or do you think it's from people dumping trash in the ocean?

    The rag-picker's dogs do look happy. A short, but perhaps, enjoyable life for a dog? After all, what dog doesn't like to root through trash?

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