Adaptive Reuse

I recently participated in an art contest called "Made from Ike" in which artists of all levels were invited to make artwork out of the detritus from Hurricane Ike.

My entry, seen here, is entitled "Tear the Roof Off the Sucka." It's made from shingles that flew off of my roof during the storm. Roofing shingles are an interesting and very itchy medium to work with.

I started off planning to do some sort of spiral or cyclone but like almost all of my art projects, it evolved into something else. I'm somewhat obsessed with mosaics so that became part of the piece. I then curled some shingles into cylinders and arranged them to look like a bow on a present but that turned out to be too boring. I ended up arranging them in an upward arc. Voila, an art piece born out of destruction!

Alas, my piece did not win any of the prizes. However, I did get my picture taken with the other artists, momentarily feeling like a rock star and/or Britney Spears from all the flashing lights, and had unlimited access to free St. Arnold's ale. The event was held at the Caroline Collective, which I am pretty sure was named in my honor. I also met a really nice school teacher who loved my piece and has invited me to speak to her first graders about my art. Now that is a real prize!