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in her
work. The truth is that for centuries, artists have used bones,
hooves, scales, skins, shells, and all kinds of other animal
parts in their work.
In South Africa, folk art made from recycled cans and other
recycled materials can be found in many countries. Increasingly,
this art is finding its way to North America and other parts
of the world. Thanks to a great deal of ingenuity and creativity,
cans, crates, plastic, and scrapyard objects that would have
been considered trash are now being sold at both fine art
and folk art galleries worldwide.
Temporary mediums are very popular. In 2006, The Rochester
Art Center in Minnesota hosted an event that featured artist-made
temporary structures made out of ice. Wm. Kenneth Daw, who
calls himself "Pawlick," creates works out of dog
food. In San Francisco, Steven J. Backman actually made a
sculpture of the Golden Gate Bridge out of 30,000 toothpicks!
Why do so many artists insist on using materials not considered
typical? Each artist surely has his or her own reason for
choosing the mediums in which they work, but to the rest of
us, what may be most inspiring, titillating, or just plain
interesting about work that employs more than paint, is that
it reminds us that the human race, however troubled, has the
ability to find meaning in the strange, banal, sickening and
hideous—and most amazingly, to then transform it.
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