Industrial Sea Joe Willie Smith		Print This Page Email This Page

Look up...is it art? Is it recycling? Both!

March 9, 2009 - August 15, 2009

Over the next several weeks, Phoenix artist Joe Willie Smith will create an underwater landscape of sea creatures and jellyfish at the Scottsdale Civic Center Library. Their tendrils will float and move in the air currents, evoking the briny deep. Smith hand-crocheted these sculptures using recycled plastic strapping.

Industrial strapping is the plastic binding material that keeps large loads of paper, boxes and other goods together when they are shipped to stores and businesses in Scottsdale, Phoenix, and all over the world. In just one month, 200 lbs. of strapping in this temporary installation were gathered through the Phoenix Document Destruction and Recycling Center by the Arizona Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Inc.

Joe Willie Smith is a multi-media artist working primarily with found objects. Recently he has focused on “Urban Fields Studies”, constructing artworks in-situ and leaving them in empty lots and public spaces, as random public art. These installations have been shown in gallery settings in Phoenix. Smith is also an experimental musician, performing on sonic sculptures he creates from found objects. Smith’s work is in the permanent collections of The Butler Museum of American Art, The Phoenix Art Museum, Taller Experimental De Grafica, Neiman Marcus Corporation and numerous private collections.

For more information about the artist, please email:
joewillismith@yahoo.com

This temporary artwork is commissioned in conjunction with the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project at

The Gallery@The Library. April 11 - July 11. For more information about Scottsdale Civic Center Library, click here.

Photos by Rachel Woodburn