“Will Work For Trash, Local Artists Bring Attention to Houston’s Trashy Ways”, by Mona Metzger, Houston Green Scene, December 2009

Will Work For Trash
Local Artists Bring Attention to Houston's Trashy Ways
By Mona Metzger
December 2009

Inspired by a 2008 New York Times article that ranked Houston as the worst recycler among the nation's 30 largest cities, two Houston artists, Nicola Parente and Divya Murthy are on a mission to increase awareness about Houston's trash so they created art from it. Wasted Resolved and Natural Recyclers were created with the intent to make the viewer more aware of our city's waste consumption and to create a dialogue with the audience that focuses attention on the importance of reducing waste.

Natural Recyclers consists of three giant mushrooms, whose bases are fabricated from rebar, soil and moss. The mushroom caps and stems are planted with Texas native and non-native, edible and herb plants. The use of the mushroom reflects the important role the fungi play in the ecosystem through its use of decomposing materials as its source of nourishment. Parente and Murthy feel the mushroom and its symbiotic relationship with the root structures of plants is the ideal symbolic gesture to promote environmental consciousness within our community.

Wasted Resolve demonstrates the need for increased efforts to recycle synthetic and non-biodegradable material and reduce levels of local waste production and is a visual categorized summary of un-recycled waste created from debris collected during a week long period from an eight-block area surrounding Art League Houston. The numbers on the wall compare Houston's recycling efforts to other major US cities and the "trash graph" is composed of discarded items collected in just one week from the neighborhood surrounding Art League Houston. Both serve as a small reminder that the responsibility to clean up lies with the individual and our individual communities.

When: Wasted Resolve: through December, 2009
Wasted resolve
Location: Art League of Houston
Cost: Free
For more about Abstract / Contemporary Artist: Nicola Parente
Web: http://www.nicolaparente.com
Blog: http://www.nparente.blogspot.com/
Studio: 713.922.6327
email: nicola@nicolaparente.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nic