- I like using discarded and recycling material as a way of expanding one's understanding and appreciation of life and art.

(gentle music) This is a large air filter.

Sometimes I don't know what it was in its previous life and just come up with new ways of using it.

But for me, this is gonna be a container and I've already visualized it.

I want to elevate it a little bit.

And so I'm gonna put some feet on it from the found object.

So there'll be three feet on it, and that'll give it a little bit of lightness.

(container thumps) But I also like the pattern, but the patterns are so dominant that you see only those patterns.

So I wanted to find a way to modify the surface as well as to add some color.

So I went back to the (paint brush scratching) aspect of painting, and I'm going to paint and push paint into some of the areas.

Once I have the feet on it, (feet knocking) once I begin to alter the surface, then I also wanna have a lid to cover the container.

So all this gives me opportunity for exploration and play.

One way of expressing for me that's enjoyable is to be able to find something that someone says its use has been extended and used up and discarded, only to find out that you can take that same discarded object and now repurpose it, reuse it in another way.

In so doing, it expands your understanding and appreciation, as well as helping the environment.

I found something else, which is an old wooden mold piece that's going to become the lid.

(lid bangs) I like that.

And gives me a chance to work on the lid to compliment the forms.

So they'll be tied together with shape and color.

And I wanted something happening on the top, so I found something else that will be mounted and attached.

So it loses what its original form was, in terms of being a filter, and now becomes a decorated container that can have many, many aspects to it.

If you recognize that art is a human innate quality that we all can experience, then you recognize that while you may not choose to move into the arena of expressing yourself as an artist, you can certainly appreciate it.

A focal point for the mask would be another old wooden mold form that, in my imagination, appeared like a face.

So this will be mounted.

(mold thumping) Found art can be a wonderful way of extending one's understanding and appreciation of life and art.

We are a society that make things for our convenience and for our livelihood, but we also have a narrow perception of its functional use.

If we make something for one purpose, and once we've used it, then we have a tendency to discard it.

(metal thumping) So now I have the concept in mind, and you put the technique and the craftsmanship, the hammering, the nailing, the gluing, the screwing down, and the embellishing of the surface.

So I found that artists and musicians and dancers and writers have always looked at the world and gave their perception of it, and sometimes helps us to see in ways that we hadn't seen before.