Green Gallery

 

Current Show

April 19 – June 15
Friends and Family
open hanging exhibit of reuse art from the community

Opening Reception: Friday, April 19 from 6-9 pm

“Friends and Family”, opens on Friday, April 19. A reception is scheduled from 6-9 pm. “Friends and Family” is an annual non-juried, open-hanging exhibit where Friends Club members, board and staff, and the community at large are invited to hang any work that incorporates strong elements of reuse. Artists of all ages, skill levels, styles and mediums in the Triangle area are welcome to participate. The “Friends and Family” exhibit is a true community celebration of the creative spirit that lives in all of us.

Opening night festivities will include free make-and-take, refreshments, PBR beer and live music by pianist Ronnie Capps. “Friends and Family” will run through June 15. Green Gallery receptions are free to the public and held in conjunction with Third Friday Durham activities. For more information, call The Scrap Exchange at 919-688-6960.

 

Previous 2013 Shows

January 18 – February 8
Versions
mixed media work by Cody Tyler

Opening Reception: Friday, January 18 from 6-9 pm

More photos from this exhibit can be found on our Flickr page.

Our first exhibit of 2013 opens in The Green Gallery on Friday, January 18. This exhibit, titled “Versions” features art by Cody Tyler. The work includes a collection of mixed media pieces using found or handmade materials to provide a canvas for drawings and collage art, which Tyler refers to as “stories”.

Tyler is a self-taught artist who grew up in a small town in Iowa, and would often hide out to be alone. As a child, he used drawing, coloring, painting and collage as a “way for me to turn negativity into positivity”. As an adult, he continues to use his art “to turn undesirable situations into far more attractive things.” Tyler elaborates on his motivation. “Every story has many layers, voices, expectations and interpretations. I believe in and have faith in bold honesty and deep compassion. I am a firm believer that even if the truth hurts, it is still far more beautiful.”

“For this collection, I went back to my basics of drawing and collaging”, Tyler continues. “Always collecting and saving scraps of paper, cardboard and wood products, I have made my own canvas to achieve the look and feel I wanted for the layers and versions of each story.”

Tyler currently resides in Durham, and has been selling his art and exhibiting around the Triangle region since 2006.

“Versions” will run in The Green Gallery from January 18 – February 8. An opening reception will be held on Friday, January 18 from 6-9pm. The reception will include free art making, music by DJ NoneOne, refreshments, and PBR beer. Green Gallery receptions are free and open to the public.

 

February 15 – March 9
found object sculpture 2009-2012
art by Shelly Hehenberger

Opening Reception: Friday, February 15 from 6-9 pm

More photos from this exhibit can be found on our Flickr page.

This exhibit, titled “found object sculpture 2009-2011” features art by Shelly Hehenberger. The work includes a collection of mixed media wall sculptures inspired by nests and seeds.

The artist’s sculptures were made entirely from found and reclaimed objects, including some natural forms such as stones or bark. The unifying element in each of these is an interior space that is like a nest or the inside of a seed. Hehenberger explains her fascination with these natural forms. “These spaces are often veiled or obscured by layers of other forms to suggest the idea of a secret inner place perhaps containing a mysterious potential. I use found objects because I find it very interesting that they have a history, another life and purpose that I may never know. I enjoy giving them new purpose in a sculptural form, one that speaks something of their past while delighting in their new-found identity.”

“found object sculpture 2009-2011” will run in the Green Gallery from February 15 – March 9. An opening reception will be held on Friday, February 15 from 6-9pm. The reception will include free art making, music, refreshments, and PBR beer. Green Gallery receptions are free and open to the public.

 

March 15 – April 13
Elsewhere presents “A-LIVE in the Kitchen”
interactive cooking show installation by artists from Elsewhere

Opening Reception: Friday, March 15 from 6-9 pm

The Scrap Exchange is teaming up with Elsewhere artists to present an interactive Green Gallery installation that mixes scrap art, community TV and cooking shows into a delicious mixture titled “Elsewhere Presents: A-LIVE in the Kitchen”.

“A-LIVE in the Kitchen” is a cooking show with a-live foods and friends, featuring cultures, yeasts, herbs, wild edibles and fungi as primary ingredients. This installation re-imagines the cooking show format as a platform for participatory culinary experiments, inviting the community to broadcast a-live from a set constructed in the Green Gallery at The Scrap Exchange using puppets, at-hand materials and scraps for each show.

The artists producing the installation are from Elsewhere in Greensboro, NC. Elsewhere is a non-profit organization that includes a living museum using the massive collection of a former thrift store, plus an artist residency program and collaborative learning laboratory designed to generate a more curious, creative community. (Find out more information about Elsewhere at www.goelsewhere.org/.)

A pilot episode of A-LIVE in the Kitchen will be taped on March 15th from 6-9pm during Third Friday festivities at The Scrap Exchange. Third Friday visitors are invited to join the A-LIVE audience in the Green Gallery as special guests. Future episodes of “A-LIVE in the Kitchen” will be shown on ALIVE TV, a community broadcast television station inside the Elsewhere living museum.

The Scrap Exchange creative reuse arts center is located at 923 Franklin Street in Durham. The Green Gallery is open to view anytime during regular retail store hours. Green Gallery receptions are sponsored by PBR, and held in conjunction with Third Friday Durham activities. Opening receptions include free art making, music, refreshments, and PBR beer.

“A-LIVE in the Kitchen” will run in the Green Gallery from March 15-April 13. To arrange a personal taping of the show with friends or family after the opening, email Jack Thegen-Crowley at store2@scrapexchange.org. For more information, call 919-688-6960.

 

2012 Shows

January 20 – February 11
Xiucutil: The Origin of Beautiful Species
Paintings by Joe McDonough

        

More photos from this exhibit can be found on our Flickr page.

Discarded wood finds new life in this exhibit. Xiucutil: The Origin of Beautiful Species features paintings and burned images on salvaged wood by Durham native Joe McDonough.

McDonough is a conceptual, performance, and visual-based artist, writer, and musician. He is also a comedian. He was born in Durham in 1981. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, McDonough has drawn experience for his art and comedy while living in cities across the United States, including Providence, Baltimore, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, upstate New York, and various towns in North Carolina. He currently lives in Richmond, Virginia. Interested in the way time affects objects, McDonough works largely with found and discarded materials.

To see more artwork from Joe McDonough, visit his website at www.joemcdonough.net.

 

February 17 – March 10
Leaving Liberty
Works created by Daniel Bagnell using materials in (and rescued from) the Liberty Warehouse

         

More photos from this exhibit can be found on our Flickr page.

Artist Daniel Bagnell has been the collections coordinator and warehouse manager at The Scrap Exchange for over 5 years.  This show will feature work created in the old Scrap Exchange warehouse space made entirely from odds and ends gathered there over the past five years (prior to the collapse of the roof in May 2011).  From readymades to kinetic sculpture to collections of unexpected like objects, the former Scrap warehouse has inspired an infinite variety of aesthetic assemblage and visual delights.Come and see what all those scraps were up to while nobody was looking…

 

March 16 – April 14
The Artful Robot
Community exhibit featuring robot art in all mediums

         

More photos from this exhibit can be found on our Flickr page.

The Artful Robot celebrates all things robotic in this community exhibit opening in The Green Gallery at The Scrap Exchange. Come see how artists throughout the region use old computer bits, random metal, containers, canisters, buttons, broken jewelry, unexpected discards, and other detritus to make… robots!

The Green Gallery will be transformed into a fantasy world incorporating a wide variety of two-dimensional, sculptural, metal and interactive art that playfully explores our perception of robots from the past, present, and future.

The opening reception of The Artful Robot is scheduled for Friday, March 16, from 6 to 9 p.m. Festivities will include free Make-and-Take activities, refreshments, PBR beer and music.

In addition, artist Sebastian Herdlicka will lead a drop-in class titled “Tetra Pak Wallets” during the gallery opening. The class takes place in the new Design Studio at The Scrap Exchange. Students will learn how to create a wallet from empty milk or juice boxes. The class fee is $7 and students can drop in and participate any time from 6 to 9 pm. Bring your own empty drink boxes or use one provided by the instructor.

 

April 20 – May 12
Friends and Family Show
Community show featuring reuse art

         

More photos from this exhibit can be found on our Flickr page.

Friends and Family is our annual open-hanging exhibit where Members of our Friends Club, board and staff, and the community at large are invited to hang any work that incorporates strong elements of reuse.

Artists of all ages, skill levels and mediums are welcome to participate. The Friends and Family show is a true community celebration of the creative spirit that lives in all of us.

Friends and Family opens on Friday, April 20. A reception is scheduled from 6 to 9 p.m. and is open to the public. Opening night festivities will include free make-and-take activities, refreshments, PBR beer and live music by Saint Mattress. The reception will also include a party and cake to mark The Scrap Exchange’s 21st birthday!

Friends and Family runs from April 20 through May 12.

 

May 18 – June 9
Re-used with Care
Mixed media collage and assemblage by EJ Greaves

         

More photos from this exhibit can be found on our Flickr page.

Re-used with Care opens Friday, May 18 in the Green Gallery at The Scrap Exchange. This exhibit features colorful mixed media collage and assemblage by Durham artist EJ Greaves. Greaves collects small everyday items and found objects, and then transforms them into fun and playful art pieces that invite the viewer to play the I-Spy game.

Greaves has always been attracted to collecting, reusing and recycling found objects in his creations. He studied art at Florida International University in Miami, receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree before eventually moving to Durham.

“While in art school I created art for the sake of quantity and quality, while fun and creativity were stripped aside. My life as an artist withered and almost died after graduation, becoming a hibernating seed until my move to North Carolina. Now my work is at a deeply personal root because it is steeped in selfishly using creation as an extension of myself, without regard to what others think.”

Re-used with Care will run from May 18 through June 9. An opening reception will be held on Friday, May 18 from 6-9pm with live music and refreshments. Green Gallery openings are sponsored by PBR. Admission is free.

 

June 15 – July 16
A Legacy of Thrift
one couple’s life of reuse and the family they influenced

(This exhibit was named one of the 11 Best Triangle Art Exhibits in 2012 by Blue Greenberg, art critic for the Durham Herald Sun.)

         

More photos from this exhibit can be found on our Flickr page.

Working at The Scrap Exchange is not simply a job for marketing coordinator and reuse artist Ruth Warren. It’s a chance to live a dream and indulge a passion for reuse that she learned as a child. In the next Green Gallery exhibit at The Scrap Exchange, Warren presents a retrospective of reuse spanning eight decades by examining the lives of the two people that influenced her the most – her parents.

“My parents are no longer with me, but thanks to The Scrap Exchange I can celebrate their spirit of utilitarian and creative reuse every day. The Scrap Exchange feels like home and reconnects me with core values that I learned in childhood.”

Warren collaborated with two of her siblings, Lee Stadler and Lynne Mann, to create an exhibit that focuses on the life of their parents Raymond and Leola Glover. The exhibit examines how the couple incorporated concepts of thrift and reuse throughout their lives, and the impact that lifestyle had on their children and extended family.

“My parents both grew up with little money, and during the Depression they used the concepts of reuse as a means of economic and physical survival. They passed those skills onto their children. I was making Christmas ornaments from bottle caps and magazine pictures when I was a preschooler. My father salvaged wood and nails from old pig pen lumber to use while building the house I grew up in. My mother saved eggshells, matchboxes and used greeting cards to make intricate 3-dimensional diorama ornaments. My childhood paper dolls were cut from magazines and Sears Catalogs. When my sister and I played “grocery store”, we used real empty food boxes instead of imitation plastic ones. Is it any wonder that I developed into an artist who simply adores the ‘art of reuse’?”

Sisters Mann and Stadler also have strong memories of everyday reuse. Mann recalls, “One thing I remember vividly was Mom making lye soap by rendering down animal fat saved in a container from every meal. Another memory was Daddy saving every vegetable seed possible from his vegetable gardens – carefully spreading them out to dry for the next year’s crops and then storing them in mason jars, envelopes, or whatever was handy.”

Stadler has equally vivid memories. She reminisces, “I learned a great lesson from both my parents. Things will last forever if you take care of them. To this day, we can still take out Mom’s 1960s aluminum Christmas tree (from the original box) and remove all the limbs from their brown paper sleeves to set it up. Not one sleeve is torn or missing! And Daddy never put a shovel or hoe away dirty. He took care of his tools and machines. Things were bought with the intention of using them till every scrap of use was exhausted. Disposable just wasn’t in their vocabulary.”

The three siblings are bringing a wide variety of personal memorabilia to the exhibit, each piece serving as a detailed example of their parents’ life of thrifty reuse. Collections include boxes and small furniture handcrafted from salvaged wood, well-worn walking canes whittled from tree branches, family scrap quilts, World War II ration books, 1940s photos of a 6’x12’ structure that was “home” to Raymond, Leola and their three oldest children, trinket boxes made from greeting cards, Christmas ornaments created from everyday discards, and much more.

“A Legacy of Thrift” opens Friday, June 15, with a reception from 6-9pm. Opening night festivities will include free make-and-take activities, refreshments, PBR beer and live music by pianist Ronnie Capps. “A Legacy of Thrift” runs from June 15 through July 14.

 

July 20 – August 11
America: Lost and Found
A look at ourselves through found photos and other ephemera

         

More photos from this exhibit can be found on our Flickr page.

The Green Gallery at The Scrap Exchange is getting ready to celebrate its 100th Third Friday reception, and the public is invited to join the party! The next exhibit, “America: Lost and Found”, opens Friday, July 20 and opening night festivities will include an All-American hotdog cookout to help mark the milestone.

“America: Lost and Found” is a tribute to the people who have unintentionally documented America and its culture through their discarded family photos. People’s lives are filtered out through the mass of donations that pass through our doors daily, and many of those donations include family pictures and keepsakes. As we piece together found photos from 100 years ago until today, we build a narrative about the American experience that is simultaneously diverse and repetitive, anonymous and familiar. Through our collection of slides, family albums, prints and related ephemera such as vacation maps and postcards, we create an almost voyeuristic glimpse into what we value as Americans, and what we choose to document and save for future generations.

“America: Lost and Found” opens Friday, July 20, with a reception from 6-9pm. Opening night festivities will include free make-and-take activities, refreshments, grilled hotdogs, PBR beer and live music. “America Lost and Found” runs from July 20 through August 11.

 

August 17 – September 15
Modified Multiples//Mundane Machines
installation by Julia Gartrell

     

More photos from this exhibit can be found on our Flickr page.

“Modified Multiples//Mundane Machines” opens Friday, August 17 in the Green Gallery at The Scrap Exchange. This show features sculptures by Julia Gartrell that explore common consumer items and unexpected mechanical processes.

“Modified Multiples” is a series of sculptures using numerous repeating objects combined together into new forms. The repetition of items transforms normal objects into unusual creations and explores our need to collect, consume and discard. “Mundane Machines” is a group of home-made machines that perform useless or redundant tasks. These highly constructed devices subvert the idea that machine-made items are more efficient and/or modern, and explores notions of labor and specialization. The series of sculptures and machines work together to look at how we approach mass-produced items in a fast-paced and wasteful culture.

Julia Gartrell is a sculpture and installation artist from Durham, NC. After graduating from Kalamazoo College in 2008, she has been refining her sculptural practice through kinetic and interactive artworks. Gartrell’s work primarily explores the production and consumption of goods, specialization of labor and the relationships between art, artist and viewer. She is a 2010/11 recipient of the Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artist Grant from the Durham Arts Council. Using the emerging artist grant, she traveled to Morocco to participate in the Ifitry Artists Residency program. Her piece from the residency was selected for inclusion in the 2012 Casablanca Biennale exhibition.

Gartrell was also a former store manager at The Scrap Exchange creative reuse center, and will soon begin a post-baccalaureate art fellowship at Kalamazoo College for the 2012/2013 school year. She has shown her work previously here in the Green Gallery, and also at the Light Fine Arts Gallery in Kalamazoo, MI, the Durham Storefront Project, Made in the USA in Raleigh, NC, and SPARKCon in Raleigh, NC.

“Modified Multiples//Mundane Machines” will run from August 17 through September 15. An opening reception will be held on Friday, August 17 from 6-9pm. The opening includes refreshments and live music, and marks the debut of a new Durham band, the Hillbilly Hipsters! The band features David Rogers and his nephew Patrick Rogers, who are backed by the drumming force of Steve and Dan Mullaney, and the deep tones of Rob Walpole’s washtub bass. Together, the Hillbilly Hipsters produce a rich blend of folk inspired music. Other bands performing during the opening include The Beauty Operators and Beloved Binge.

 

September 21 – October 13
B-Sides: The Poster Show
Poster art by Ron Liberti, Matt Hart, Galen Williams, Daniel Bagnell

        

More photos from this exhibit can be found on our Flickr page.

This exhibit features event and gig posters from the last 20 years by four local artists: Ron Liberti, Matt Hart, Galen Williams and Daniel Bagnell. All four artists have designed posters for a wide variety of venues, bands, art shows, music gigs, and special events throughout the region.

Ron Liberti has been making art posters since the early 1990s. His work has been commissioned regularly by Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, NC and has been exhibited and sold worldwide. Matt Hart is a printmaker in Durham who creates his screen printed poster images by hand. Galen Williams creates his poster art with spraypaint, collage and hand stenciling techniques, and will exhibit posters that he created between 2004 and 2008 after moving to Durham, NC. Daniel Bagnell uses computer manipulations of vintage images to incorporate into his art, which is then printed onto a wide variety of salvaged papers.

The evening will also mark the opening of permanent, in-store art installations created by environmental artist Bryant Holsenbeck. Holsenbecks’s work is internationally recognized and she has created reuse installations throughout the US on college campuses and other public places. She recently completed an artist-in-residence program at The Scrap Exchange, where she created colorful installations throughout the retail space using scrap materials found within the store. Volunteers and store staff worked alongside Holsenbeck throughout the process. Installations include wispy walls of rainbow-colored streamers; bobbing bird mobiles suspended from the ceiling; and a “tunnel” traversing the entire store that leads young kids and (older kids at heart!) from the front of the Scrap Exchange through to the Make and Take room at the back of the reuse center.

Holsenbeck’s tunnel and art installations are intended to remain a permanent fixture in the retail store space. “B-Sides: The Poster Show” will run in The Green Gallery from September 21 through October 13. An opening reception for both the gallery exhibit and store installations will be held on Friday, September 21 from 6-9pm. The opening includes refreshments and live music by The Wigg Report, and Alec Ferrell.

 

October 19 – November 10
a small and curious nature
art by Tamara Galliano Bagnell

     

More photos from this exhibit can be found on our Flickr page.

“a small and curious nature”, opens in The Green Gallery on Friday, October 19. Inspired by the curiosity of her young son, artist Tamara Galiano Bagnell explores how we decipher and relate to the common objects and spaces around us, from the early years of life until after we are gone. Artwork will include assemblage, collage, and screen-printed works.

Bagnell explains that becoming a parent changed how she looks at the world. “The work in this show focuses on my own personal relationship with the material world, how I have chosen to define myself and the things around me. Becoming a mother and experiencing my surroundings through the eyes of my two-year-old son has caused me to re-evaluate the world in ways I never could have imagined. This show is dedicated to him.”

The artist explains her work even further. “Inspired by the common objects and spaces that surround us, my work explores the relationships we have with everyday things. When we begin our lives, objects are mysterious, unique, and full of possibility….spaces can quickly transform and shift from one purpose to another….their uses are not predetermined. As we mature, familiarity sets in, our lives become busy, and objects and spaces often become strictly defined and arranged without question. We grow attached to particular things, define ourselves by them, construct narratives around them, while others fade into the background.”

Tamara Galiano Bagnell grew up in the suburbs of Boston, MA and moved to North Carolina in 2003. She received her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art in 2001 where she studied experimental sound, electronic music, and screen-printing. She currently enjoys working in a variety of media, from painting and screen-printing to installation and mixed media assemblage. She also runs her own business creating screen-printed art and accessories.

“a small and curious nature” will run in The Green Gallery from October 19 through November 10. An opening reception will be held on Friday, October 19 from 6-9pm. The opening includes refreshments and live music.

 

November 16 – December 15
I AM SAVED!
art by Kimberley Pierce Cartwright

     

More photos from this exhibit can be found on our Flickr page.

“I AM SAVED!” features work by Kimberley Pierce Cartwright, a local artist who experiments with a wide variety of media, including fiber, wood, ceramics and paint. For this exhibit, Cartwright used discarded wood trays to create impressionable works of art.

Cartwright is inspired by a needful purpose to consume less of everything and to make use of the bounty of materials that can be repurposed in art making and everyday life. She explains, “As a reuse artist, I feel that every speck of material is precious.” All of the artwork in “I AM SAVED!” is made from reclaimed materials. Cartwright elaborates on the artwork’s message, stating that “the expressions are simple and the message is clear that discarded materials can live another life as objects of unusual beauty and uniqueness.”

“I AM SAVED!” will run in The Green Gallery from November 16 through December 15. An opening reception will be held on Friday, November 16 from 6-9pm. The opening includes refreshments and live jazz music performed by TheDeepDivingQuartet.

 

December 21 - January 12
Living Wage Art
Pop art on cardboard by Dan-o Parrish

Opening Reception: Friday, December 21 from 6-9 pm

         

More photos from this exhibit can be found on our Flickr page.

The Scrap Exchange is pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibit in The Green Gallery on Friday, December 21. This exhibit, titled “Living Wage Art” features work by Dan-o Parrish, a local artist whose “Living Wage” series of artwork features spontaneous pop-art illustrations and images drawn or painted on cardboard. Most pieces are then priced at a minimum wage labor rate plus the cost of materials.

“I believe in the democratizing power of interesting, intelligent and affordable art,” explains Parrish. He also elaborates on his choice of cardboard as his “canvas” for much of his Living Wage art. “[Cardboard] has always appealed to me because of the combination of cheapness/availability and the fact that the brown color of the material is a good neutral base to pair with the bright colors of my cartoony/pop-arty painting style.”

Dan-o recieved his BA in Studio Art from UNC Chapel Hill. He has shown his art in various businesses around the Triangle, and is most notable for his “Minimum Wage Art” series at the Inside Scoop in Chapel Hill.

“Living Wage Art” will run in The Green Gallery from December 21 – January 12. An opening reception will be held on Friday, December 21 from 6-9pm. In addition to the Green Gallery opening reception, The Scrap Exchange will be simultaneously hosting their annual holiday party! Additional festivities throughout the evening will include a Cupcake Walk, free art-making, a Swap-O-Rama-Rama community clothing swap, and Iron Crafter 4: Scrapocalypse! (Iron Crafter is an annual contest hosted by The Scrap Exchange where contestants compete to create themed creations from scrap materials, cheered on by a Scrap Exchange audience.) Admission to the Green Gallery opening reception and Scrap Exchange holiday party is free!