Art Is My Bag is a group show exploring humanity's use of resources centered on the bag.

Art Is My Bag started with the idea of art created out of everyday objects with everyday subjects. This led to the Art Is My Bag - States collage wall consisting of sandwich bags containing various collage elements combining pop culture and historical icons in a map of the United States. The collage is two-sided, with the map of each state on one side and whatever is relevant to that state on the reverse. Each collage consists of multiple floating collage elements taking advantage of the fact that the collage medium is indeed a bag. The bags are hung on fishing line wired across a wood frame. The bags are held on the wires with the same butterfly clips that can be found in any office across America. The wood frames were made out of recycled lumber in keeping with the theme of everyday material and collage as the art of material re-use.  I invited two artists to join me in creating the Art Is My Bag – States collage wall.

To further my exploration of accessible, environmentally friendly, everyday art, I have invited several artists to create Art of Bags, about Bags, or with Bags to accompany the collage wall. The artists were inspired to create art exploring humanity’s use of resources and the global impact on the environment centered on the bag. The participants created a variety of work such as, paintings that explore the color of paper bags, collages using paper bags, paintings and drawings about bags, installations exploring trash, installations asking the question, “paper or plastic?”, installations exploring global warming, shadow boxes, weaving, knitting, installations exploring identity, and all are simply amazing. The goal of Art Is My Bag is to create environmental awareness and bring the larger issues, global warming and an individual’s responsibility regarding trash, for example, into focus by using the bag as subject and often medium. Our intention is to inspire the public to environmental awareness and to create art by the re-use, re-cycle, and re-think of the bag.

Enjoy!

– Leigh Radtke, 2008

Click on image to see larger. For more pictures, visit the "Art IS My Bag" website at artismybag.com