16 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
Artists reclaim waste for artful invention
Astoria Visual Arts,
Recology Western
Oregon name two
artists for residency
ASTORIA — Two regional
artists have been selected
to participate in the inau-
gural Coastal Oregon Artist
Residency program, which
was developed collabora-
tively by Recology Western
Oregon, an employee-owned
company that manages
resource recovery facilities
on the North Coast, and
local arts nonproit Astoria
Visual Arts. COAR aims to
support the creation of art
from recycled, repurposed
and discarded materials.
Sean Barrow, of Asto-
ria, and Dawn Stetzel, of
Seaview, Washington, were
selected by a jury of arts and
environmental professionals.
Each will be provided with
a monthly stipend, materials
and dedicated studio space at
Recology’s Astoria Recy-
cling Depot and Transfer
Station over a three-month
period, commencing July 11.
By supporting artists who
work with recycled materials,
AVA and Recology Western
Oregon hope to encourage
people to conserve natural
resources and promote new
ways of thinking about art
and the environment.
Barrow, an Eastern Ore-
gon native, is a multi-media
sculptor who works frequent-
SUBMITTED PHOTO
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Made of fabric, paperboard,
housepaint and woodglue by
Dawn Stetzel in 2011, “House-
dress” was a sculptural perfor-
mance piece with backpack
straps that could travel with
the artist wherever she went.
ly with metal and wood but
is equally skilled in work-
ing with ceramics, leather,
plastics and fabric. Barrow
began his professional life
nearly two decades ago
creating photographs. He
subsequently branched out
into metal and woodwork-
ing, painting, stone-carving,
“So Long and Thanks for All
the Pollen” was a 2007 sculp-
ture by Sean Barrow made
of bent steel rod and tubing,
springs and rough pin oak
planks.
design and moving imagery.
Barrow is keen to engi-
neer new sculptural building
materials out of recycled
media. “I like to reach into
the science of projects when
I can, so I’m very interested
to learn of the processes, the
lifespans of the materials
and what innovations are
possible as a result,” he says.
“My goal is to complete a
group of sculptures made
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from recycled materials by
the end of this residency.”
Barrow received a Bach-
elor of Arts in industrial
design, with an emphasis on
sustainability, and a minor
in sculpture from Evergreen
State College in Olympia.
Originally from Iowa,
Stetzel holds an Master of
Fine Arts from the Universi-
ty of Massachusetts at Dart-
mouth. She has done several
artist residencies, including
an invitational in China and
a two-month residency in
Brazil. After a residency
at the Sitka Center of Art
and Ecology on the Central
Oregon Coast, she began a
journey of exploring various
ways of connecting to place.
Her recent sculptures use
the house as a metaphor
for humans: a single house
stands for an individual
and a cluster of houses for
a community. This gives
the artist the opportunity to
explore the intangible: Her
feelings regarding a sense of
community and her search
for belonging.
In her sculpture “House-
dress,” Stetzel uses dis-
carded materials to create
house structures that, she
says, are similar to shanty-
towns with shared walls and
barely-held-together roofs
to which she feels both a
connection and a profound
separation.
“My process is to not
just make art out of trash,”
says Stetzel. “There is a
story to all the material that
I collect, a strong connection
to place and the people who
live here. For me, this way
of making is a life-path of
stewardship and creative
problem-solving that pro-
vides a connection to each
other and the environment.”
Astoria Visual Arts
was founded in 1989 as a
local nonproit membership
organization to enhance,
strengthen and promote the
arts in the Astoria area.
Recology Western
Oregon manages munic-
ipal disposal processes
and services that span the
needs of urban, suburban
and rural communities.
Recology companies oper-
ating in California, Neva-
da, Oregon and Washing-
ton specialize in integrated
resource recovery and
recycling. As an employ-
ee-owned company, Recol-
ogy sees a world without
waste. This is the vision
of over 3,000 employees
whose mission is to build
exceptional resource
ecosystems that protect the
environment and sustain
communities.
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