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Check Out Landfill Art, the Ultimate in Green Art Projects

LAND-FILL ART; AN ARTIST RECLAMATION PROJECT

Ken Marquis of Marquis Art in Wilkes-Barre, PA has created a Global Art Project that  involves the recycling of more than 1,000 landfill automobile hubcaps by turning them into Metal Canvases and, subsequently, art. It’s a non profit effort and will, eventually, involve artists from all over the world. The project got started with local artists and is now expanding statewide to  artists from every county in Pennsylvania. The grassroots project needs your help making connections with an artist in every state as well as artists around the globe.

The 1,041 pieces of rusted metal are actually old automobile hub caps from the 1930’s through the 1970’s. Each hub cap, after being cleaned and primed, is affectionately called a “metal canvas.” Although most “metal canvases” have been transformed by the artist using oil or acrylic paint, some have been weaved on, glued or screwed or welded to, or made into fine sculpture.

Ken notes, “I have found that the fine artists I have worked with on this project do not even flinch when looking at this white round disc of metal canvas. And why should they.  Artists from the beginning of time have used cave walls (Lascaux, France and Altamira, Spain,) walls of pyramids (Egyptians,) animal skins (American Indians,) etc… as their canvas.”

Although the project is in its infancy (Ken hopes to have it completed by 2012,) it will evolve from a simple idea of taking forty-one old rusted hub caps and creating forty-one pieces of great art. The second phase has already started with the acquisition of 1,000 additional rusted hub caps which will be turned into cleaned and primed “metal canvases.” The project will continue with finding 1,000 talented artists who believe in this project.

The third phase will be publishing a book on the project showcasing all one thousand forty one (1,041) completed “metal canvases.”

Check out the website Land-Fill Art and see how you can get involved!

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