“Art teachers have always used found materials,” Marilyn Brackney said.  “Budgets for art materials are slim, and late in the semester funds are gone. Teachers had to fall back on free supplies.”

Brackney speaks from experience. A trained artist and art educator, she lives in Columbus, Indiana, where she taught in local public schools. In 1988 her budget for art supplies was reduced from $1,000 to $250 for the semester, so she collected discarded items to reuse as art materials. Then she had to figure out projects for them that would interest her elementary through high school students.

While developing her course, she listed each material (e.g., aluminum cans, calendar pictures, latex house paint ) along with step-by-step instructions for each activity.

To share these ideas, her husband, who was director of  technology for the Columbus school system, created a website, The Imagination Factory. The Trash Matcher section pairs each waste material with an illustrated art/recycling “how-to” activity.  It’s a great help to teachers planning classes and parents figuring out what to do with children unexpectedly housebound for an afternoon. The site has been visited by millions of people.

The Imagination Factory website is a family project. The Brackneys' daughter, author Susan Brackney, created the logo.

During her classes Brackney talks about landfills and the need to reuse materials to raise the students’ awareness of the environment. She created Trashasaurus Rex, a 300 pound dinosaur, 9 1/2 feet tall by 11 feet long, made entirely of household rubbish, in protest to a court ruling that forced Indiana to accept trash from the East Coast although their local landfills were almost all filled up. After exhibiting it in Indiana and Florida to raise awareness, she donated it to the Rocky Mount Children’s Museum of North Carolina.

No longer teaching in the public schools, Brackney holds private classes in her home and updates the website with new projects and ideas. She also curates and mounts exhibits created with reused materials — the  Deja Vu Fine Art and Crafts Show — held periodically in Columbus.

In honor of Super Bowl Week 2012,  Brackney was asked to create Tree Cozies to decorate the downtown area of Columbus, an hour from the stadium in Indianapolis. With the help of 32 young volunteers, the group created Super Kids from old and spare mittens, stuffed with fibers from an old pillow.

Super Kids decorations made from odd mittens in honor of the Super Bowl.

Another Indiana art educator, Joe LaMantia, who lives in Bloomington, aims to demystify art, developing projects with communities and schools that they can work on as a group.  He offers “a holistic approach to creating art that’s shaped for each unique cultural setting” with children, parents, families and staff to encourage their imagination. The adults help in assembling the framework for each project, which are usually made with reused materials.

Originally studying to be an architect, LaMantia has picked up a variety of skills in several art careers: He taught art therapy in an adult day care center, spent years as a dimensional illustrator for magazines and publications and helped install exhibits in Boston at the Institute of Contemporary Art and MIT art gallery before carving out his niche as an educator and collaborative, public artist.

For example, when his daughter’s school was moving to a new building, LaMantia approached the principal and suggested that they use materials from the old school for art in the new school.  With the school’s support, he secured funding from the state and city; eventually more than 30 organizations donated money and services.

The result, completed in 2010, is a 12-foot-tall head of a cat — based on a drawing by a fourth grader — made from recycled and new steel. Cat parts are made from recycled steel and aluminum:  The aluminum lettering comes from signage of the old school; the aluminum mouth comes from the old fire escape, the cast iron nose comes from a metal fire door that had these cast iron rollers and the whiskers come from recycled reinforcement rods from a local scrape yard. To make this as inclusive as possible, all the children, teachers  and adults of the school put their handprints on the cat which in turn gave a texture that looks like fur. The project involved about 350 people: students, parents and the immediate community.

Cat made from recycled steel, outside the Artful Learning Center in Bloomington, Indiana.

As Artist in Residence, LaMantia helped a school in Indianapolis build The Villagers’ Bell Tower to commemorate 80 villagers who settled the school’s neighborhood in the late 1800s. Each bell includes a historic or cultural reference to the original settlement.

LaMantia, who has also developed community projects in Kentucky, Illinois, Oklahoma and Minnesota, continues to raise public awareness of the environment while creating an opportunity to work as a community, one unique project at a time.

For more information, visit his website.

I first became conscious of altered books 12 years ago when a graphic artist friend, Sue, told me she was creating them. She pointed out it is O.K. to reuse old, unwanted books, which are, unfortunately, in ample supply.

Books become obsolete — unreadable through wear and tear, or simply outdated. Sue took only the ones that “spoke to her” in the pile her library threw out each year.

I cringe to think of my contributions to the orphan-book pile: the tech manuals for WordPerfect and other extinct technologies, last year’s phonebooks, and old one-volume encyclopedias that I must re-home or send to ruin periodically as I make room in my library for new titles. It’s tough for readers, but great for artists — free supplies.

Since then, I have been looking for exhibits of altered books in galleries and museums.

Turns out the term is very broad. It refers to any artwork that changes the appearance of a book and/or its function or meaning. The change can be minute — the artist can change just one page — or transformational (for instance, combining several books to form a sculpture).

Anything goes in altering books. Techniques include cutting, gluing, painting, rubber stamping, changing the shape, among others. Here are a few artists using books as their medium — the tip of the iceberg, or a blurb for the back cover, if you will.

Chen Long-Bin prefers to work with out-of-date books, magazines and phonebooks. He uses a buzz saw to transform these information-saturated materials into detailed sculptures that are exhibited internationally.

“One Buddha, Two Systems (New York)” by Chen Long-Bin. Mixed media sculpture with Chinese and English New York Yellow Pages. 43 x 28 x 28 cm. 2008.

Georgia Russell is a Scottish artist who dissects printed matter, music scores, maps, newspapers and photographs into what she calls “membranes of memories.” Her work is seen internationally and included in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s permanent collection.

“Cut Book in a Bell Jar” by Georgia Russell. 17.5" high. 2007.

“Cut Book Jacket in an Acrylic Case” by Georgia Russell 13.75" x 11.75" x 4".

Brian Dettmer started out as a painter. When he worked in a sign shop, he began to explore the relationship between text and images and eventually started working with old books in 2000. Today he works with older dictionaries, encyclopedias, textbooks, wallpaper sample books, comic books and other printed materials. “The book’s intended function has decreased and the form remains linear in a non-linear world,” he said. “By altering physical forms of information and shifting preconceived functions, new and unexpected roles emerge….”

“New International Dictionary, 2003” by Brian Dettmer 12" x 9" x 7".

Alex Queral creates mostly celebrity 3-D portraits from bound phone books, using only an X-acto knife and acrylic paint. The faces are often painted with a monochromatic wash to separate the image from the printed background page, which remains untouched. Queral said that he is “celebrating the individual lost in the anonymous list of thousands of names.” The sculpture is then sealed with acrylic to preserve the work.

“Albert Einstein” and “Barack Obama” by Alex Queral.

And, on the practical side, Kara Witham is one of several people who offer hollowed-out book safes for sale on the web, at her Etsy store.

“Hollow Book Safe & Flask - The Odyssey” by Kara Witham.

For further information about these artists, check these websites.

• Chen Long-Bin
• Alex Queral
• Karra Whitham
• Georgia Russell

Deep into January. I was preparing dinner, feeling as grey as the sky outside — we were supposed to have snow the next day. Then, in between the equally dreary news on the radio, something interesting caught my ears.

I heard Robert Siegel on All Things Considered interviewing the director of a movie called “Oka!,”  about a group of Bayaka pygmies who live in the Central African Republic. Interesting enough.

Then he said the pygmies produce “stunning music – (with) their voices, and their use of virtually everything around them, trees, even the water in the stream, as musical instruments.”  I was hooked.

For background, the director explained that the Bayaka, a forest people, are among the most ancient people on earth, being related to the San bushmen and the original inhabitants of Africa, and they remain hunter-gatherers. The word “oka” means listen in their language, Aka. The children begin singing and dancing with the group when they are two years old.

The soundbites he played awakened the armchair traveler in me, who took a YouTube break while dinner simmered. It was enchanting. I plan to buy a copy of the CD of the soundtrack, “Listen, Oka” when it is released in February. (The movie, unfortunately, received mixed reviews.)

What exactly does a river played like a drum sound like? Here’s a quick example:

Here are some Bayaka Women Yodelers — many wearing hats made from large leaves:

And a more formal introduction to the Bayaka culture:

Here are some beautiful recordings of songs with still illustrations (ethereal duet sung by two girls):

I love to both travel and listen to my friends talk about their trips — especially those taken by artist WC-P and her husband, WP, who is an expert with electronics and machines as well as a connoisseur of old cars. The couple only drive vintage cars which WP has renovated. He spent four months restoring a comfortable, roomy 1989 Grand Marquis station wagon which they drove from Arlington, Virginia to visit the iconic Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas on their vacation in 2007.

Forty years ago, Amarillo billionaire Stanley Marsh lll wanted to create a piece of public art that would baffle the locals. In 1974 he supported a proposal by a group of San Francisco artists known as the Ant Farm to develop a tribute to the evolution of the Cadillac’s tail fin. The artists drove 10 different Cadillac models into one of his fields along Route 66 west of Amarillo, and then half-buried them, hood down, in the dirt — supposedly at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Gaza. The cars faced west in a line, their tail fins displayed for all to see.

Often-decorated Cadillacs displayed at Cadillac Ranch.

WP visiting the Cadillac Ranch with obligatory supplies -- camera and spray paint -- in hand.

Marsh and the artists watched what happened next. People visited the cars and defaced them or tore off pieces as souvenirs; the tail fins disappeared. Stripped to their frames and splattered with spray paint, the Cadillacs are still on display for large numbers of international tourists who arrive with spray paint and cameras. Adding their graffiti, they ask others to take pictures of them, before someone else comes by and repaints it.

Unfortunately, other tributes to the whole American car have not fared as well.

Spindle, a 1989 sculpture, was located in a shopping center parking lot in Berwyn, Illinois. Commissioned by the center’s owner from sculptor Dustin Shuler, it consisted of eight cars — including the owner’s BMW — impaled on a 50-foot spike. The sculpture’s foundation extended 30 feet into the ground and cost $75,000 to install.

Spindle became both a tourist attraction — it was featured in the film, Wayne’s World, and in the syndicated comic strip, Zippy the Pinhead — and a source of civic controversy.  Some citizens petitioned the mayor to remove it while the mayor claimed it attracted more business to the town. In 2007 it was removed when the shopping center site was redeveloped and nobody ponied up the  $350,000 needed to relocate it.

"Spindle" as it once appeared as a sculpture in Berwyn, Illinois' shopping center.

A 1987 family reunion produced Carhenge in a field outside Alliance, Nebraska, where farmer Jim Reinders has constructed a unique memorial to his father.

While living in England, Reinders had studied the structure and proportions of the ancient Stonehenge. Instead of using massive stones for his monument, however, Reinders arranged 38 vintage American cars, all covered with grey spray paint, in a 95-foot diameter circle. Some sit upright, trunk-end down, in pits nearly five feet deep, with other cars welded on top to form arches. Other automobile sculptures have been added to the Carhenge location over the years.

Carhenge was listed as one of Time magazine’s Top 50 American Roadside Attractions and was featured in the 2007 travel book, 1,000 Places to See in the USA and Canada Before You Die.

"Carhenge," a megalith built on a farm outside Alliance, Nebraska.

"Carhenge" (detail).

The site, visited by 80,000 people a year, is now run by the nonprofit Friends of Carhenge, which does not charge admission; the grounds are open all day, every day.

The Friends no longer have resources to expand the site and have put it up for sale for $300,000. If the group does not find a buyer, President Marcia Buck said the Friends will continue to care for it, including maintenance of these non-moving vehicles. Unlike Cadillac Ranch, when parts fall off, they are put back in place.

“The damn things break down even when they are struck in the ground,” Buck said.

In December, when I was buying Christmas presents at a wonderful local upscale gift shop that doesn’t usually carry Art-Eco products, I was surprised to see clocks, brooches and a mirror made with discarded metal bottle caps.

Almost since the invention of the “crown cork” in the 19th century, bottle caps have provided an inexpensive and abundant source of art supplies once they’ve been separated from the beverage container.

Bottle-cap art has been popular since the 1940s, because they were inexpensive and relatively plentiful. We are now seeing more modern artists experimenting with bottle caps as recycled materials have become almost mainstream.

L. "Bottle Cap Basket" made from bottle caps c.1940. Photo courtesy of The Ames Gallery. R. "Bottle Cap Basket/Sculpture" handmade from bottle caps, gold paint, metal armature with lid bottom. From coastal Georgia. c. 1940-60. Photo courtesy of the Acacia Collection.

Clarence and Grace Woolsey began making bottle-cap figures in 1961 when they were employed as farmhands in Iowa,–reportedly to make use of a gallon of bottle caps they had accumulated. Over the course of a decade, they created several hundred sculptures. Discouraged by lack of public interest in their work, the couple stopped making them and stored them in a barn owned by Grace’s brother. The figures were discovered 20 years later when the farm was auctioned in 1993.

"Untitled Figures" by Clarence and Grace Woolsey. Photo courtesy of the American Folk Art Museum.

In the late 20st century, painter and web designer John Boak has decorated hand-built kitchen cabinets in his mountain cabin with bottle-cap medallions. The proliferation of microbreweries has provided caps in a wide array of colors which he stores, by color, in old soda bottles.

John Boak's bottle-cap cabinet medallions. Photos by John Boak.

Want to try your hand at this?  Boak shows the rest of us how to do this on his website.

Greg Warmack, aka Mr. Imagination, is a contemporary self-taught artist who worked as a street artist before he was shot during a robbery. After waking up from a coma in the hospital, he had a new vision and began working exclusively with found objects. Now his work can be found in private collections and museums throughout the world.

"Bottlecap Figure with Mirror" by Mr. Imagination. This figure is two feet tall and has an elongated mirror in its center. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

In addition to creating found art and sculpture which is exhibited throughout the country, Michelle Stitzlein teaches workshops for children about creating sculpture from bottlecaps, and other found materials. Both facets of her career require large quantities — more than any one person can provide. “90% of my caps are donated from family, friends and strangers who have heard about my work with kids,” she said. “They do take up a considerable area of studio space. Maybe 16 feet.”

Stitzlein's students show their work made with plastic bottlecaps. Photo by Michelle Stitzlein.

There few “how to” books about creating art with caps.  Stitzlein has written two.  Her newest, Cool Caps!, designed for teachers, parents and children, contains 7 projects made with recycled plastic bottle caps. It is available for sale on Lulu.

U.S. Botanic Garden, Conservatory.

I live and work in Washington, DC, but the closest I usually get to the Senate and House of Representatives is when I visit a living plant museum.

The U.S. Botanic Garden is located at the base of Capitol Hill and a few blocks from the National Gallery of Art — you can see the Capitol dome as you wander the outdoor gardens in warm weather. The rotating indoor displays — the collections include 60,000 plants — are my favorite place to take a quick vacation from a leafless winter landscape.

The winter holiday displays are so gaspingly beautiful that I make time to visit them every year. At this time of year, the Conservatory is decorated with fragrant wreaths, garlands, seasonal plants and huge trees covered in ornaments.

For me, the most special part is the detailed models of government buildings handmade from a mind-boggling number of dried plant materials: screw pod rails, whole cinnamon sticks, palm fronds, honeysuckle branches, sea grape leaves, bamboo, canna seeds, gourds, willow, corn husks, elm bar, pine cone scales, eucalyptus seedpods, raffia — a palette most of us would never imagine or collect — all overlaid on solid wood bases.

The genius behind the landmarks in miniature is landscape architect Paul Busse. His company, Applied Imaginations, has been crafting large-scale garden railway designs and buildings from natural, plant-based materials for 30 years.

Model of White House made from plants and displayed at the U.S. Botanic Garden. Photo by U.S. Botanic Garden.

The U.S. Capitol building in plants displayed at the U.S. Botanic Garden. Photo by U.S. Botanic Garden.

The U.S. Botanic Garden's Conservatory created from plants. Photo by U.S. Botanic Garden.

While I love riding on trains, I am not a big model railroad fan. But every year I am compelled to see the Botanic Garden’s Garden Railway Exhibit for its sheer ingenuity. This year it features eight model trains surrounded with inventive buildings, also created from dried plant materials. The buildings on these routes vary from Presidential homes to fanciful critter condos that challenge us to figure out who would live in them. Can’t wait!

The Ladybug Train currently running its route at the U.S. Botanic Garden.

Imaginary animal homes surrounding a toy railroad display at the U.S. Botanic Garden. Left: Giraffe's House. Right: Porcupine's House. Photo by U.S. Botanic Garden.

We here at Eco-Artware.com are going to take some time off to enjoy connecting with friends, family and special holiday traditions, like visiting the Botanic Garden. We hope that you enjoy your together time too. We will return to our computers in two weeks and look forward to further exploring the world of Art Eco with you throughout the new year.

Happy Holidays to all of you from all of us: Reena, Jan, Kate, Tony, MaryBeth, Skye and Santa’s elves who moonlight with us from time to time.

British artist Susan Stockwell crafts her works from recycled materials – maps, money, computer parts.

“A Chinese Dream” is a world map quilted from that country’s currency by Susan Stockwell. At right: detail showing individual bills.

Wall hanging, “Afghanistan, A Sorry State,” is made from U.S. dollars by Susan Stockwell. At lower right: detail showing bills and stitching.

Stockwell says her works are shaped by a dialogue with her materials. She trained as a sculptor, but early in her career began using paper for the practical reasons that it was cheap and readily available. Then she drew on the dressmaking skills handed down from her mother and grandmother to design political fashion statements: Gowns from the British Colonial period made from maps of the Empire.

Full size “Colonial Dress” made from world maps by Susan Stockwell.

From there, the leap to a dress stitched up from obsolete British banknotes was a short one, followed quickly by maps created from other currencies.

Full size “Money Dress.”

Stockwell began working with discarded computer parts after a year-long residency in Taiwan in 2007 opened her eyes to the importance of recycling to the island’s economy. She created and recycled a piece called Freefall from literally tons of discarded electronic components.

“Taipai Stack” (foreground) and “Freefall” (background) by Susan Stockwell at the Hong's Foundation, Taipai, Taiwan.

“Flood” by Susan Stockwell.

Flood by Susan Stockwell consisted of a tower of computer components pouring from the roof of the church, into the nave–filling it with colorful pieces of metal and wire. It was temporarily installed for a four-month exhibit at York St. Mary’s. a medieval church re-created as an exhibit space for contemporary work in England.

Stockwell has reinterpreted the work in several locations, including a deconsecrated 13th century church in York, to help people consider how ubiquitous electronics have become in modern life — and the problems associated with dealing with them once they become obsolete.

Dear Readers:  In honor or this season for costumes, we’ve written about a woman who made art costumes from trash and an obscure book that helps DIYers whip them up–quickly.

Sculptor Erika Diamond is a versatile artist who often works with recycled and organic materials.  A recent commission was an artist’s dream, She could make 13 costumes — anything she wanted — for a ballet performed at the North Carolina Dance Theater.  The choreographer (Mark Diamond, her father) decided to provide a green theme for seven brief pieces that looked at how we relate to the environment. They ranged from tree hugging to recycling to accidents that have dirtied the environment.

Instead of Erika designing her clothes to suit the story and music, Mark developed moves around the costumes’ limitations.

Left to right, the Reel to Reel Dress and Hat, Bottlecap Pants, 2-Litre Bottle 2-Piece Dress, and Newspaper Dress designed for a ballet program by Erika Diamond. Photo: Jeff Cravotta.

Diamond said that because she grew up with ballet she was “comfortable with the way the body moves.”  “It wasn’t foreign to make something to surround a dancer, to be part of what the dancer is doing,” she said.

The costumes, which survived the wear and tear of four performances, were then shown at a recycled fashion runway show in North Carolina this April. They were next displayed in a gallery in Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte.

Umbrella Outfit Erika Diamond designed for a ballet.

Diamond also included two new art fashion gowns in that show. One is made from bottle parts and labels of the VitaminWater Power-C (containing dragon fruit, taurine, and Vitamin C).  She created it for a design competition sponsored by VitaminWater (the challenge: to create clothing inspired by a flavor of the drink). She said her gown has subtle dragon-like characteristics. 

VitaminWater Power-C Dress by Erika Diamond.

Diamond's Birdcage Dress is made from fabric and altered chicken wire. Photo: EF Photography.

Diamond creates all the clothing herself and said it took about a month each to complete the VitaminWater Dress and the Birdcage Dress, including fitting them to real models.  It’s an intricate process — the following video gives an idea of how she does it. 

“Large Black Grass,” blades of grass, polyurethane, resin on a panel 26” x 42” x 2” by Erika Diamond.

Her next exhibition, in Rock Hill, South Carolina, will include her two-dimensional work made from blades of grass as well as some new pieces.  Visit Erika Diamond’s website to see more of her work.

Help for the Halloween-Costume Challenged

With the upcoming holidays, school plays and pageants may have you scrambling for costumes. Rather than panic, discover a little-known book that shows an easy way to scare up a unique costume from thrift store finds and old outfits hidden in your closet — no sewing necessary. An 87-page paperback book, Instant Period Costume: How to Make Classic Costumes from Cast-Off Clothing by Barb Rogers tells how to create imaginative costumes from thrift store finds, personal period pieces, and old bridesmaid’s dresses without using a needle and thread. The secret is a glue gun (the Magic Melt, a low temperature gun, will do the job without burning through several layers of skin when aimed incorrectly). In addition to working up a finished piece quickly, the costume can be cleaned by washing it in cold water. The book, which contains black and white photos and easy to understand instructions, is a good reference books for ideas. It could also be helpful for low budget theater companies. Available in Eco-Artware’s bookstore for $18.76.

Ptolemy Elrington is a British sculptor who “makes representations of natural forms from recycled or reclaimed materials.” It seems he hasn’t found any scrap metal he couldn’t transform into a wondrous form. He created giant creatures from hubcaps and old shopping carts (some were fished out from local rivers and canals).

Hubcap Fish by Ptolemy Elrington. Photo by the artist.

Insect made from shopping cart. Photo by Ptolemy Erlington. A large sculpture can take up to 200 hubcaps.

 He made an 8-foot-tall statue of Queen Elizabeth ll from old/returned and broken cooking utensils and kitchen equipment.

Ptolemy's statue of Queen Elizabeth ll which was commissioned to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Queen's wedding to Prince Phillip.

Recently he created a samurai from 1 mm stainless strips donated by Ernst and Young. The accounting firm “decommissioned a structure in their HQ in London and wanted the materials to be used artistically rather than melted down,” Elrington said. “The bamboo-like color on some of the strips is actually remnants of the adhesive that was used to bind the strips to a wooden form. I used the different sides of the metal to get the effects I wanted.”

Samurai by Ptolemy Erlington. Photo by the artist.

His new scrap bird is made out of bits of old cars “If you look closely you can work out a wing in the wing (so to speak) and a number on the breast of the bird is 206 from a part of an old Peugeot,” he said. The whole thing is mounted on a reclaimed steel girder.

Ptolemy's Scrap Bird.

Cannot wait to see what he conjures up next. To see more of Ptolemy’s work, visit his website and our article about him in the Recycling Rag.

Oregon artist Angela Haseltine Pozzi makes colorful sea creatures out of beach trash to make a serious point about the growing problem of plastic in the ocean.

More than 70 percent of the planet is covered by ocean, and for every square mile of ocean there are an estimated 46,000 bits of plastic. That’s a lot of flotsam and jetsam, and according to the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California, it’s responsible for the injuries to 10 percent of the sea creatures the center treats. Seals, birds, sea turtles, dolphins and other ocean-going mammals eat plastic items floating by, such as disposable lighters or toothbrushes, or get tangled in abandoned nets or fishing line.

Bleached Coral Reef made from styrofoam, and polystyrene currently exhibited at the Marine Mammal Center.

Pozzi, a former art teacher, builds her huge sculptures entirely from plastic collected from the beaches near her home south of Bandon, Oregon. Local residents help collect, sort and clean the debris, bringing in two tons of plastic in just eight months in 2009.

Her first all-beach-plastic project was a permanent installation at her gallery, Art 101. It is a sea cave filled with creatures that glow in the dark, creating the illusion of bioluminescence. Pozzi has also created a traveling exhibit, Washed Ashore, to help spark awareness of the threat plastics pose to the world’s beaches — and food chain.

Detail from Angela Haseltine Pozzi's Bioluminescent Sea Cave constructed from sea trash.

“I want (people who view her work) to see it as a problem that there’s all this plastic washing ashore,” she told the High Country News earlier this year. “These are purposefully made sea creatures that say, ‘Look, I’m made of plastic. The fish out there? They’re eating plastic. You have to stop this.’”

Sea Star made from plastic and glass bottles, plastic trash and foam currently exhibited at the Marine Mammal Center.

Washed Ashore is on display at the Marine Mammal Center through October 15. 

To see photos of Pozzi and her team creating the sea cave, go to her website, SeaThingsArt.com.