Objects find new life in "Viable Resources" show

Freedom of the press, women's suffrage, religious freedom and civil service — they're a few of the ideals that Laura Sindell's father held dear during his lifetime. This intimate information is encoded in her 2002 stamp mosaic, "Seeds to Sow, Seeds to Save."

On vacation from its permanent home at the University of Washington Medical Center, "Seeds" is a moving part of "Viable Resources," one of a slew of Northwest exhibitions currently focused on recycled and repurposed materials.

"Artists do tend to work from materials they find as opposed to always buying (them)," says curator Deborah Paine, of Seattle's Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs.

And the materials used in "Viable's" 53 artworks — all borrowed from local corporate collections — vary dramatically, from pop-tops (Marita Dingus' "Pull Tab Figure") to hubcaps (Lawrence Beck's "Walrus Spirit") to stickers Gretchen Bennett peeled off of streetlights, to the crayons Diem Chau sculpts into extremely tiny people. They present a broad portrait of mostly Northwest, always-resourceful talent from the past and present.

"We have this rich heritage of making sure that there is art, not just for the community that may happen upon it, but for the employees that live with it every day," says Paine.

Your workplace would be a lot brighter if graced by Evan Blackwell's "Disposable Hero," a bust made from melted red and yellow cocktail swords, Scott Fife's giant cardboard icons, or Meng Huang's "Wide Eyes," a bug-eyed trash-sculpture that wags its tongue at the viewer. The Chinese immigrant, a former set designer, reportedly filled his small Chinatown International District apartment with detritus collected from the street.

"I never met Meng Huang, but I seriously admired how he used and transformed castoffs from commercial culture," says Deborah Lawrence, whose collage "New World Order" belongs to Seattle City Light and appears in "Viable Resources."

"The recycling of materials, the use of found images, does help to connect me with popular culture," Lawrence says of her own work, which often explores censure and propaganda.

"And I hope that the audience that recognizes an image might be lured to take a second look, for the same reason that I'm attracted to an icon from art history or the collective unconscious."

A particularly impressing piece in "Viable" is Marc Dombrosky and Shannon Eakins' "Re: Re:Agent," a multipart map of the United States made from shredded business cards. Arranged into tufts that show city concentrations and travel patterns, the Safeco-commissioned work finds a very meta use for so much junk.

The light on the second floor of the Convention Center is unfortunately dim, but the hallway-gallery space is visited by hundreds of people each week, whether they're neurologists or comics fans dressed as Street Fighter characters. Through June, art lovers who wish to view some timely and tucked-away gems should also convene.