University of Colorado at Boulder student artists are hoping their class project, a work comprised of miscellaneous trash collected from students' favorite Boulder walkways, will send a message to those inclined to litter.
"We hope that others might be made aware of the trash people have thrown away in Boulder along some beautiful places to walk," said Professor George Rivera, instructor of CU-Boulder's "Art and Contemporary Society" Maymester course.
Twenty students in Rivera's class contributed to the collective piece, called "My Favorite Place to Walk in Boulder," that will be on display at the Boulder Public Library from June 20 to July 15. The piece was critiqued by Ken Bloom, director of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, and will be displayed with student notes detailing where items were found.
For the assignment, each student was asked to take a walk in a favorite spot in Boulder and collect three pieces of trash.
"Since we read much about ecological artworks created all over the world, we decided that bringing this concept to our own footsteps would help us to become more ecologically conscious," Rivera said. "Thus, we share this piece made from 'found trash objects' with our fellow Boulderites."
Student Mary Beth Livermore examined each piece of trash for its aesthetic qualities and thought about how it would contribute to the exhibit.
"It was one of the first times that I truly felt like an artist had officially captured my perspective, as I sat there having one of those 'American Beauty' moments staring at a receipt blowing in the wind, thinking, 'Ooh, isn't that chewed up piece of gum in that paper just fascinating?'" Livermore said. "That's the trash that I picked out - the really amazingly beautiful garbage."
Livermore, a senior fine arts major, was impressed with what the class produced and said it was a challenge to collect random items without evaluating them.
"No matter how hard we try to be unbiased, we are always looking at the world through the eyes of someone that creates beautiful things out of everything that surrounds us. That is our job as artists - that is what we are training ourselves to do. We are becoming 'visionaries,' so as we are starting to see things differently, we are even seeing the art in garbage," she said.
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