These premier Northwest artists create music, sculpture, fashion, street, and mixed media art using repurposed, found, or salvaged materials. The medium used by these artists communicates a strong environmental message about issues surrounding consumption and waste. ReVision is a consideration of the issues recycled artists face in trying to get their messages out in a traditional art world. As one recycled artist articulates, “When you tell people you’re an artist they initially think you’re a painter.” There are some artists such as Charles Thompson who don’t even consider what these recycled artists produce as art.
Using themes from philosophy of art, psychology, and environmental ethics, ReVision is an attempt to reconcile the differences between recycled artists and the traditional art world. Revision also explores the philosophical question, “what is art?” among several other important questions such as “who gets to decide what counts as art?” and “what’s the difference between art and craft?”
