Art engages children in recycling

Olympia doesn't have an art museum, but its children's museum has an art gallery that is featuring noted Northwest artists.

The Hands On Children’s Museum’s Looking at Art Gallery is hosting a new exhibit of recycled art by Diane Kurzyna of Olympia and Stuart Gullstrand of Seattle. The gallery will showcase a changing lineup of recycled art, curated by Matter Gallery owner Jo Gallaugher, for at least the next year.

Marcy Pickett-Johnson, the museum’s educational projects coordinator, came up with the idea for the gallery’s new focus while visiting Matter in downtown Olympia.

“I just fell in love with the concept of showing the work of local and Northwest artists who were using recycled materials and found objects,” Pickett-Johnson said. “We have our own recycled art studio here at the museum, and we’re committed to green practices with the new museum we’re planning. We wanted to communicate to families and kids about using recycled materials and creating new things.”

Kurzyna’s plastic-bag and candy-wrapper people and Gullstrand’s assemblage faces will hang in the museum for the next few months, and then Gallaugher will choose works by other Matter artists to replace them.

“I picked them based on the responses that their work gets from children,” Gallaugher said. “The gallery itself is a great place to bring kids. Kids just go nuts for the pieces here because everything is so three-dimensional and textured. There are a lot of interactive pieces.”

Pickett-Johnson said, “From the minute the exhibit was up, the kids were really excited.” In fact, the exhibit has gotten a great review from museum director Patty Belmonte’s family.

“My niece and nephew, who are 8 and 10, were in the museum over the weekend, and they were absolutely captivated,” Belmonte said. “They went right up to it. They made the connection about how they could look for materials that other people were going to throw away and turn them into an art piece.

“It was very inspiring to hear them talk about it.”

And the museum plans to capture their enthusiasm.

“We’re going to be doing art in our preschool classes and in the recycled art studio that is inspired by the works of the artists hanging on our walls,” Pickett-Johnson said.

The artists are happy for the exposure to a young audience.

“I hope we are expanding people’s ideas of everyday materials that they can use to make art,” said Kurzyna, also known as Ruby Re-Usable. “My hope is that this inspires artists and art lovers both young and old to make art, not waste.”

Kurzyna said she’s happy to have her well-known plastic people – and an alphabet “quilt” of all recycled materials – hanging in the museum where she often took her sons when they were younger.

“They are impressed that I get to have art work temporarily on display at such a beloved place,” she said.

While Kurzyna’s work is often whimsical, it’s also serious art, she said – and she’s serious about the importance of reusing materials.

“Recycled art isn’t just something kids do, and it isn’t just for kids,” she said, “but I love having it where kids can enjoy it.”