Savannah Morning News
“New Open-Air Art gallery Boosts Chatham County Recycling Center”
Artist Matt Toole puts finishing touches on a statue in front of Chatham County’s Resource Conservation Education Center. [Nick Robertson/SavannahNow.com]
By Nick Robertson nrobertson@savannahnow.com Posted Sep 18, 2019 at 5:57 PM
Abstract visions twirl in harmony with Mother Nature alongside Savannah’s busy Eisenhower Drive, where a new outdoor gallery space for conservation-themed artwork is drawing attention to an innovative recycling center.
The new open-air addition to Gallery F.A.R. (Fine Art of Recycling) occupies a roadside plot in front of Chatham County’s Resource Conservation Education Center, which serves a dual role as a drop-off point for recyclable materials and a community forum for eco-friendly living. Established in 2011, the RCEC’s on-site gallery provides local artists with a free showcase for their creative works — on the condition that they must be made with at least 70% reclaimed materials.
Wilmington Island native Matt Toole is the first artist whose works enliven Gallery F.A.R.’s freshly paved alfresco display space, where he recently installed a pair of fanciful kinetic sculptures that spin in the wind. These 12-foot-tall statues join smaller pieces in the gallery’s interior to comprise Toole’s newest exhibit, opening to the public Friday evening.
“I’m taking some chances with some new work, some new ideas,” said Toole while putting finishing touches on the exhibit’s outdoor pieces. One of these sculptures, called “Diviner”, fuses a warped motorcycle muffler, a faucet, and a fuel-tank float atop a plywood mount clad in roofing material; the other — called “Circumvention” — pirouettes like a weather vane balanced by a discarded metal hoop and a plastic fitness-machine part.
Such avant-garde works made of mechanical objets trouvés may seem out of place to passersby on Eisenhower Drive, where neighboring buildings include a post office, a strip mall, and a branch of the Georgia Department of Driver Services. However, this eye-catching artwork is aimed to increase visibility for the RCEC, according to Chatham County Environmental Program Coordinator David Nash.
“There’s no public art like this in Savannah right now,” Nash said, likening this initiative to the recently launched Starland Mural Project. “My initial thought was to transform Eisenhower into a corridor for art, to have many displays.”
Although open-air artworks will only appear on Eisenhower in front of the RCEC for now, Nash is glad to have such distinctive markers for the recycling center, which many area residents claim to have difficulty spotting.
“We’re always hearing people say ‘Where you at?’ We’re trying to make it impossible for anyone to say that,” Nash said.
While most RCEC visitors simply drop by to drop off cardboard, scrap metal, plastic containers, used motor oil, and many other types of recyclable waste, everyone is welcome to stop in and admire the indoor Gallery F.A.R. artworks, displayed in a building purposefully constructed with reused materials and energy-efficient systems to highlight how green practices can be gracefully implemented in modern homes.
Along with the indoor gallery space, the RCEC houses a workshop room where events frequently encourage awareness of the conservation movement’s “three R’s” — reduce, reuse, and recycle — among adults and children.
After first creating artwork out of unwanted items as a kid on Wilmington Island, Toole hopes that his imaginative outdoor sculptures will intrigue children to visit the RCEC and become interested in environmental conservation.
“I really have thought a lot about a child’s perspective in this, and what they will pull from this,” Toole said.