Ever wonder what happens to old pull tabs from aluminum cans, the wire off champagne corks, or that old lathe from a room remodel? Well, wonder no more. You’ll find these and many other objects reclaimed by several artists and put to good use in the exhibition Reclaimed: Artists Working with Recycled or Repurposed Materials. The exhibition is on view through June 1 at Seattle Municipal Tower Gallery.

Reclaimed highlights 16 artworks by 10 artists, including Lawrence Beck, Ross Palmer Beecher, Evan Blackwell, Diem Chau, Marita Dingus, Julia Haack, Meng Huang, Kate Hunt, Deborah Lawrence and Marie Watt.

In Tracks 2 (2009), Haack salvaged the lathe from old houses being torn down and reworked the rough-hewn wood into brightly painted, dimensional wall pieces. Beecher gathered tin cans and bottle caps then cut and wove the tossed debris into motifs in Candy Cobweb Quilt (2003). In The Disposable Heroes series (2005), Blackwell used thrown-away materials such as plastic forks or those iconic, red plastic cups and melted them to form life-sized heads.

City Curator and Collections Manager Deborah Paine selected the artworks from the city’s Portable Works Collection. Nine of the artworks were recently purchased by the Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) Solid Waste Division using SPU 1% for Art funds.

Image: Marita Dingus, Quilt (detail), 2000, recycled fabrics, 62″ x 36″. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Both the city of Seattle and King County have collected artwork for more than 40 years. “Enduring Clay” showcases a total of 43 artworks by 28 regional ceramic artists including Howard Kottler, Robert Sperry, Akio Takamori and Patti Warashina. The exhibition demonstrates the diversity of expressions in clay and the various techniques that continue to expand ceramics as a fine art medium.

Tiles and concave shallow bowls by Sperry highlight his innovative use of slips and glazes. The figurative constructions of Sperry’s widow, Warashina, showcase her love of the human form.  Much like Warashina, Takamori uses stoneware clay and underglaze to give his sleeping figures a life-like appearance. Malia Jensen and Kinu Watanabe, each use pillow-like shapes that are neither soft nor comforting in their hard, ceramic surfaces. While Watanabe creates intricate slip drawings on her shaped forms, Jensen’s shiny porcelain surface becomes almost mirror-like.

From delicately painted and finely built shapes to the rough and uneven surfaces of assembled constructions, the artworks in “Enduring Clay” demonstrate a sampling of the unique forms and variety of techniques in ceramic art.

Image: Akio Takamori, Sleeping Woman in Blue Skirt, 2003, stoneware clay with underglaze, 6″ x 12″ x 29″. Photo by Spike Mafford.

Mandy Greer; Mater Matrix Mother and Medium (detail); 2009; wool and synthetic yarn plastic, fabric, glass and plastic beads; 36″ x 68″. Photo by Blake Haygood.

Missed our 40th anniversary exhibition Seattle as Collector: Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs Turns 40 at Seattle Art Museum last year? See some highlights from the show at City Hall through March 2.

The exhibition Public Art in Seattle offers an overview of the city’s public art program with photos, drawings, proposals and maquettes for more than 60 permanent artworks located throughout the city. Also on view are materials used in artwork conservation. The exhibition is in the City Hall Lobby Gallery and in the Anne Focke Gallery on the L2 level of the building.

See maquettes by Lee Kelly and Ron Bladen, expressing in miniature what was eventually realized as the outdoor sculptures Untitled (1975) by Kelly at Louisa Boren Park and Black Lightning (1991) by Bladen at Seattle Center’s Broad Street Green. Also on view are pieces of temporary artworks that have become part of the Portable Works Collection. Mandy Greer’s Mater Matrix Mother and Medium left behind fragments of a yarn “river” that was crocheted by many hands and strung through an urban forest in summer 2009.

The city’s public art collection includes more than 2,800 artworks in the Portable Works Collection and nearly 380 permanently sited public artworks.

Hugo Ludeña, Chambelanes (detail), 1999, chromogenic print, 20″ x 30″.

What artworks from the city’s Portable Works Collection would our staff choose to be in an exhibition? Find out in the exhibition Staff Picks, on display at Seattle Municipal Tower Gallery through March 31.

Staff Picks features 24 artworks including sculptures, drawings and paintings by artists such as Glen Alps, Meng Huang, Hugo Ludeña and Charlotte Meyer. See the complete list of artists here.

See artworks such as Peter Ivanoff’s How the West Was Won and Lost, a drawing of shopping carts circling like covered wagons. Huang built a face from found objects including hubcaps and gloves in his sculpture Take a Look. Justin Gibbens created an Audubon-like illustration of a fantastical creature in his Double-headed Red Tail.

The Portable Works Collection contains more than 2,800 artworks managed by the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs.

In the exhibition “Word Play,” on view at Seattle Municipal Tower Gallery, Oct. 4 to Dec. 30, 16 visual artists express themselves with words. “Word Play” features 31 artworks that include photographs, prints, ceramic sculpture, collaged artworks, drawings and mixed media.

Sometimes words are part of the scene in the artwork. In Peter deLory’s “With Dignity” from 1979, a carefully arranged tableau of a love letter, portraits, spilled wine and lingerie belies the content of the letter.

Sometimes words are the artwork. Jenny Holzer’s documentary photographs (c. 1984) show the artworks from her “Truism” series, which consist of short statements, common myths or phrases as slogans in LED lights running on a reader board.

In other artworks, words appear because of the artist’s choice of materials.  In Ross Palmer Beecher’s “Hershey’s Chocolate Quilt” from 1986, scraps of Hershey’s syrup containers are woven together to form a traditional, log-cabin quilt design.

City Curator and Collections Manager Deborah Paine selected the artworks from the city’s Portable Works Collection managed by the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs.

The featured artists are: Scott Aho, Ross Palmer Beecher, Carl Chew, Clair Colquitt, Elizabeth Connor, Peter deLory, Garek Druss, David Gihooly, Jenny Holzer, Mark Selcuk Onat, Berkeley Parks, Manoun Sakkal, Ted Savinar, Margaret Stratton, Bethany Taylor and Blair Wilson.

Image: Ross Palmer Beecher; Hershey’s Chocolate Quilt (detail); 1986; stitched tin with wire, bike tire tubing, and auto tail lights; 64″ x 48″. Photo courtesy of the artist.

The smaller-scale City Hall exhibition—Seattle as Collector at City Hall—continues the celebration of our agency’s 40th anniversary and features works by 49 artists collected by the city over the past four decades.

See artworks by regional favorites such as Judith Poxson Fawkes and Michael Schultheis, as well as national luminaries such as Richard Serra and Pat Steir.

City Curator and Collections Manager Deborah Paine selected the featured artworks from the city’s Portable Works Collection, which includes more than 2,800 artworks.

Image: Michael Schultheis, Confocal Cycloids 08 (detail), 2005, acrylic paint on stretched canvas, 48″ x 36″. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Included in the exhibition is a 1996 model of a house by Rolon Garner and Ken Leback for the public artwork Equality – featuring dozens of small granite houses laid out  in a grid – in Seattle’s Sturgus Park. Joseph Park’s 2002 painting Rouen is his take on Monet’s studies of the Rouen Cathedral painted during different times of the day. Park’s version is harder-edged and painted at night. Contrast this with the linoleum print Armenia III/The Church by Dionne Haroutunian. Here the building is viewed as little more than a house, rustic but welcoming, whereas Park’s cathedral is looming and ominous.

John Stamets’ photograph Experience Music Project, Madonna Wall Framing shows the EMP under construction in 2000. Mark Danielson’s The Supernatural, 2005, depicts a mid-century modern house encapsulated in either a faceted gem or a coffin, asking the question of whether the artist cherishes or repels the structure. 

The artworks are in a variety of media, including paintings, prints, sculpture, photography, drawing and mixed media. City Curator and Collections Manager Deborah Paine selected the artworks from the city’s Portable Works Collection managed by the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs.

“Seattle’s buildings, streets, homes, apartments and condos make up the built environment of our city. Architects, designers and engineers have created it, but artists also use the built environment to stimulate and inform the creations they make,” writes Paine in her curator’s statement.

The exhibition will run through Sept. 30.

Performance/Art,

Photographers David Belisle, Gabriel Bienczycki, Steven Miller and Tim Summers join forces with performers to make photographs that blur the line between publicity still and fine art. In 36 archival photographs, images burst forth defying gravity and expectation – dancers suspended in mid air, a DJ cloaked in downy feathers, a performance artist perched on deer legs.

The photographs in Performance/Art feature local artists including dancers Wade Madsen and Alison Cockrill, Spectrum Dance Theater, Haruko Nishimura of the performance art group Degenerate Art Ensemble, and the performance group Implied Violence. The photographs also feature international musicians such as Michael Stipe and Patti Smith.

Performance/Art is on view in the City Hall Lobby Gallery and Anne Focke Gallery (located on the L-2 level of City Hall), 600 Fourth Ave.

Read a 2009 Seattle Times’ Pacific Northwest Magazine article featuring these photographers here.

Image: Gabriel Bienczycki, Farewell, 2010, 18 x 22.5″, digital photograph. The performers are dancers with Spectrum Dance Theater