Urban Deposit
2009

Over the last couple of years I have been looking at pedestrian waste---litter, trash and "stuff"---the kind of things we all leave behind somewhere and in some way and then photograph those items close up. For me, the tidbits I find are pieces of a story---they are clue-makers that form a narrative or visual portrait specific to an area. The Artboards present a unique opportunity to broadcast images to a lot of people from different vantage points so with that in mind I drew from Missouri Bank's example of addressing environmental needs through the redesign of their Crossroads building and their conscious effort to pass those ideas forward through the Artboards by printing on Ecoflex, an environmentally friendly billboard material. I chose to photograph throwaways that in some form could be reused by us or recycled through industry. Those items such as plastic bottles and cups, paper goods, discarded wrappers from packaged foods and snacks make up Urban Deposit and were all found on the streets or sidewalks in close proximity to the Crossroads. I put the Artboards together using a method that combines repetition and resizing which I like to call first impression obscurity. The images on the left board are recognizable but gradually transition to smaller repeated images on the right board resembling a textured and woven pattern. I did this intentionally to incorporate subject matter touching on overuse of disposables as well as the in's and the out's of recycling that follow coupled with creative innovation emerging from reusable industries that produce viable products and materials from recycled goods.

Urban Deposit (pdf)