(HOUSTON, TX) November 11, 2021 – This winter, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) showcases a survey of artists who find exciting ways to reuse and repurpose materials, scraps, and castoffs through ingenuity in Nothing Goes to Waste. Highlighting works created from discarded materials like ceramic shards, cut paper, and marble remnants, the exhibition explores how salvaged material can inspire creativity and provoke curiosity about the impact various industrial and artistic processes have on the ecology of the planet.
In the face of stifling realities such as the pandemic, many artists have shifted their studio practices and enlisted community support, using reclaimed materials from their networks in meaningful ways. Prompted by recent attacks on the reliability of the U.S. Postal Service, paper artist Leigh Suggs developed her Postal Quilt series, made from thousands of security envelopes that she collected from individuals across the country. In conversation with the communal history of the medium of quilting, these folded and stitched paper compositions pay tribute to postal workers and the critical role they fill in American life.