This installation was part of the Green Window City Art Walk for 2018. The objective was to create a window display using recycled or discarded materials. I chose to use primarily junk mail and drinking straws in the construction of my piece. Included in this installation were hundreds of pieces of handmade paper made of 100% recycled material including junk mail, pay stubs, bank statements, gift wrap, aluminum foil and drinking straws. These sheets were then cut and machine-sewn together to create a landscape showing the integration of plastic and non-biodegradable materials into our natural world. Many of the pieces in this installation were formed into their shapes as wet sheets of paper including the giant clouds and all of the hanging flowers. There are two rows of “grass” paper made with green recycled paper and cut up straws from Starbucks. There are two rows of river made with blue recycled paper and gift bags. The sky in the background is entirely made of junk mail and blue pay stubs. The sun is made using styrofoam and drinking straws and a single sheet of yellow paper. There are also more flowers made entirely of drinking straws that line the front of the window. Against the sky in the background is a form that is either a landfill with flowers growing on it or a mountain covered with trash and it’s up to the viewer to decide which they think it is.

I made this installation to encourage people to think before they decide to use items that cannot be recycled (like disposable drinking straws) but also to see that even though plastic and trash permeate everything in our world, that the beauty of nature still finds a way to come through beneath the waste.

Learn more about the Green Window City project here!