10 Creative Responses to Junk Mail – From Art to Garden Mulch

Who likes junk mail, anyway? It kills millions of trees, and most of it ends up in landfills or littering the streets.  It clogs our mailboxes and puts us at risk of identity theft.  With the amount of junk mail that arrives daily seeming to increase constantly, you may be wondering what’s the best way to deal with it.  Well, the folks over at ProQuo have gathered 10 creative responses to junk mail – from custom portraits and sculptures to handmade recycled paper and garden mulch.  Here are a few of them – check out the rest at ProQuo.com.

Link [ProQuo] via [BoingBoing]

An Artist’s Log of Three Years of Street Trash

From May 5th, 2002 to May 4th, 2005, artist Nico Van Hoorn took a daily 30-minute walk looking for the perfect piece of trash in the street.  It could be paper, plastic or metal but it had to be smaller than 10×15cm and as flat as possible.  The trash was scanned daily, and what results is a series of portraits of trash that really make you think, was this little item – whatever it was, whatever it was used for – worth littering the streets for?

Check out more of the photos at Trashlog.com

Link [TRASHLOG]

NYC Waterfall Installations Might be Killing Trees

So, those NYC waterfall installations might not be so great after all. Four waterfall installations located around the NYC metropolitan area were installed in June and lauded for their efforts to green it up by reusing the materials in construction projects after the installations come down. They also took pains to avoid harming aquatic life. Too bad they didn’t think about how all that salt water would affect trees downwind of one of the waterfalls.

Gothamist has it:

Artist Olafur Eliasson may soon have tree blood on his hands – the Brooklyn Bridge waterfall installation is kicking up such a salty spray that downwind trees are turning brown and “looking as if it’s November,” the Post reports. The saltwater is interfering with their photosynthesis, and the owner of the River Café, which has gardens just south of the bridge, is worried that the trees he planted over three decades ago are suffering too much for public art. The Parks Department agrees they’re “showing signs of stress,” and the Public Art Fund, which is producing the NYC Waterfalls, has hired a tree service to try and save them.

Oops. Hopefully they’ll be able to save the trees. That would certainly be a waste. Waterfalls are cool and all, but they’re just for human enjoyment and it would be a shame if they messed up the local ecosystem.

Link [Gothamist]

Industrial Eyesores Disguised with Art

Nobody wants to look at a ugly factory smokestacks, whether they live nearby or have to drive past them every day.  Some cities have taken to allowing artists to spruce up the eyesores, giving them a facelift with some paint and a lot of imagination.  Artist Frederic Gracia painted these smokestacks in Bagnolet, France – a huge improvement over the formerly rusty-brown intrusions into the sky.  To produce the trompe l’oeil (trick-the-eye) effect, an assistant on the ground guided Frederic with a  walkie-talkie.  The largest of the water droplets is 1.1 meters wide.

Link [Neatorama]

Art Etched Into the Dirt on Car Windows

Artists can be pretty resourceful – there are some incredible works out there made from materials you would never have thought could create something beautiful. You could certainly classify works made from recycled materials or ‘found objects’ as ‘green art’. I’m not sure that it gets much more green than this, though: creating beautiful images from the dirt on car windows. Images that will completely dissipate with the first subsequent rain.  These photos might make you think twice about writing ‘wash me’ on the window of a dirty car.

See more at Cool Things and DirtyCarArt.com.

Link [Cool Things] + [Dirty Car Art]

New ‘Waterfalls’ Art Installation in NYC Gets Green Spin

A new art installation unveiled today will give the New York metropolitan area four waterfalls, located at Pier 25, at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge in Dumbo, between Piers 4 and 5 and on the north shore of Governors Island. The waterfalls will range from 90 to 120ft, with two of them being roughly as high as the Statue of Liberty from head to toe and three-quarters of the height of Niagara Falls. The installation, by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, will be up until October 13th. The materials used to create the waterfalls will be reused in construction projects, and pains were taken to avoid disturbing aquatic life.

From The New York Times:

All told, the scaffolding used for “Waterfalls” measures 64,000 square feet and weighs 270 tons; the materials will be re-used in future construction projects after the work closes on Oct. 13. The waterfalls will be turned on every day from June 26 to Oct. 13, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and will be lighted after sunset. More details are available at the project’s official Web site.

Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg used his weekly radio address on Sunday to drum up excitement about the project. The mayor said, in part:

“The project promises to make a big splash in our local economy by attracting thousands of sightseers to town, who will then spend money in our restaurants, hotels and stores. And that money will go straight into the pockets of hard-working New Yorkers. In addition, the project’s design takes steps to protect fish and other aquatic life, which means that for the more than three months they’re up, the Waterfalls will have little impact on the environment.

It isn’t noted in the story, but we’re assuming that the water will be pumped up from the river and used for the falls. Check them out this summer if you live in the NYC area or plan to visit; Governors Island is open to the public all summer.

Link [The New York Times]

Artist Benjamin Verdonck Literally Nesting in a Rotterdam Tower

File this under awesomely weird: artist Benjamin Verdonck has created a man-sized nest and perched it high above the city of Rotterdam, clinging to the side of the Rotterdam Weena Tower. He calls this art project ‘The Great Swallow’ and to give you an idea of just how weird it gets, there is indeed an egg in there. What’s in it or what the artist aims to do with it isn’t clear. The picture alone makes this afraid-of-heights girl want to cling to something solid for dear life.

Neatorama has it:

A nest is hanging high from the Rotterdam Weena Tower. Feathers fly around it. There’s a man in the nest. He nested there only four days ago. He stretches his arms out wide open, as if he wants to fly. But it also seems like he is trying to stay upright (losing his feathers). Some people even think that the man wants to embrace them.

If you’re wondering what the hell that nest is made out of, it’s apparently the crowns of twenty-three silver birches, one birch, one willow, two straw bales, one bucket of spit (um, what?), three bags of sand, twelve buckets of glue and nineteen cans of polyurethane foam. So, they collected enough spit to fill a bucket? Whoa.

Well, props to Benjamin Verdonck for getting a lot of people to think, “huh?”

You can see the YouTube video clip here.

Link [Neatorama] + [The Great Swallow]

Gorgeous Ecostore Installation for Green Drinks

Ecostore created this lovely art installation from real lawn, flowers and oil drums for the inaugural Auckland ‘Green Drinks’ event on April 3rd. Green Drinks is an informal networking event for thousands of environmentally minded people to get together over drinks. To learn more about Green Drinks and help organize an event in your area, see the GreenDrinks.org website.

Link [Green Drinks] via [ibelieveinadv]

The Pedal Powered Flintstones Car Rides Again! Case Tossed Out of Court

I was happy to read yesterday that the case against Torontonian Trevor Baldwin for driving what is best described as a pedal powered Flintstones car was tossed out of court. Artist Michel de Groin gutted the ‘86 Buick Regal- ripping out the engine, exhaust, transmission, and even the headlights, replacing them with candles, turning it into a lighweight human powered conveyance.

The car hits just under 10 MPH on flat ground with four people pedaling and was pulled over by the police in October for being “unsafe”. The prosecutor had a hard time making his case in court and was interrupted by laughter from the peanut gallery. The case was dismissed and Baldwin took his car out for a drive.

Huzzah, a win for the green little guy.

Link [CBC News]

Photo grabbed from Carectomy

The Friday Crazy: The Can Man Suit is 35lbs. of Aluminum Can Awesome

Maybe because it’s my birthday tomorrow and I’m spending my last day as a twenty something (turning the big 30 tomorrow), but I’m feeling silly. The Can Man is rad. Check this out:

Via [Trendhunter]

Underwater Artistry: Master Aquarium Landscapes

Now this is an aquarium!

Check out the work of aquarium artists George and Steven Lo of Aqua Forest Aquarium in San Francisco. These things are amazing underwater landscapes. Pure Awesome.

Check out the Portfolio site for a ton of other amazing aquarium layouts.

Link [Portfolio] via Neatorama via Apartment Therapy San Francisco