3/25/09-Isabella-Museum Of Art and Design
The other day Aaron and I visited The Museum of Art and Design. In MAD there is a two floor exhibit called Second Lives. Second Lives is filled with sculptures, paintings, self portraits and anything else you would find in a normal art exhibit, but unlike a normal art exhibit everything in Second Lives is made out of recycled materials. Like any museum we weren’t allowed to take pictures, but luckily on the Museum of Art and Design website they have pictures of all the work in the exhibits. It is hard to say what piece is exactly my favorite because they are all so interesting, but some of my favorites would be, Trinity by Andy Diaz Hope and Laurel Roth, the entire collection by Yuken Teruya which were all untitled, and My Back Pages by Paul Villinski. Trinity by Andy Diaz Hope and Laurel Roth is a chandelier made out of needles, crystals, gel capsules, brass and chrome. When you first look up at Trinity you think that it is a normal chandelier with a slight dangerous feeling, but you aren’t sure why exactly. When you take a closer look you understand why. The entire top half is filled with gel capsules and hanging along the bottom are needles. If you take an even closer look the crystals that hang down from and fill the needles look eerily like blood. 
My next favorite piece is more peaceful don’t worry. The small collection by Yuken Teruya is made out of paper bags. Inside each bag there is a tree made out of paper taken from the top of the bag. The tree in its self is beautifully cut out, but there is a tiny detail that makes it even more beautiful. The light shines through the top of the bag where the tree was cut out, casting shadows all along the back of the bag. A small detail most people over look. There are ten bags in total so I won’t show you all of them and also you unfortunately can not see the shadows in the pictures. 
The last piece that I am going to talk about is My Back Pages by Paul Villinski. My Back Pages is made up entirely of vintage vinyl records, a record player, wire, and record covers. People today hardly ever use records and so they sit collecting dust. Paul Villinski wanted to give a second life to his old records because he didn’t want them to disappear forever.
Now I could go on and on about what we saw at the museum, but you would eventually get bored. I highly encourage others to go and check it out. Even if it isn’t for one of you sustainability visits you’ll enjoy it. Even though each of the pieces in Second Lives had a meaning behind it they all had the same under lying meaning. We have to recycle materials. Weather is be how the artiest from Second Lives and other artiest that haven’t even been focused on or in your own way. We have to start taking care of our planet and find a way to get rid of all the trash on it. Come on we don’t want to end up like Wall e do we? 
hehe sorry little inside joke from after the visit.