Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

About a dozen people turned out May 25 sorting through garbage, looking to create art.

The garbage came from the marine debris cleanup last month. About 75 volunteers combed seven beaches for two weeks to collect more than 3,400 pounds of garbage. The garbage was loaded into two full dump trucks, and some of it was hauled to the sculpture garden, near the parade grounds, for a unique event, said Tracy Wirak-Cassidy, one of the event organizers.

Second-grade students had sorted through the garbage in preparation to make marine debris art. The majority of the garbage on display was related to fishing - pieces of a crab pot, buoys and rope.

"And look! It's happening right there," said Rachel Juezeler, another organizer of the event.

Juezeler said the first step in the process is "ideation," or looking at the garbage to get a concept of what the garbage could become.

"I'm kind of, like, fascinated with this oar, and I'm like OK, it kind of, it looks like the fin of an animal. And I was going for a headpiece, but I don't think I love it," Juezeler said.

Juezeler also was there to assist people in putting pieces together - either with wire, or by drilling holes to attach.

"It's kind of a free-for-all," she said. "I'm just excited to see what people make. That's what I really love."

Juezeler described how she got involved with the project. She was inspired years ago by the art of Angela Hasseltine Pozzi, who created art out of things that had washed ashore.

"She likes to make things that look beautiful from far away, and once you get close to them, they're horrifying," Juezeler said. "And so I've been working with different types of techniques, and I do some teaching in schools in Juneau, I've been doing 'Where the Water Meets the Road' - kind of my own little version of this, in Juneau, in collaboration with Litter Free, in Juneau."

While she was visiting Haines, where she had some art on display at the brewery, Juezeler was introduced to Wirak-Cassidy and her friends.

"And they said, 'Do you wanna join in?' And I'm like, 'Yeah. Can I come in and make art?' And they collected all the art for me in the clean-up. And now I get to come down and play with garbage," she said.

For Juezeler, this is fun. But she also has a serious message, because she wants to teach people about beach waste.

And she likes the sculpture park, she said.

Then she went off to help some of the people who had just come in to the sculpture garden, offering her help.

"I will always talk trash," she told them.

Lily Ramsey, who is "12-ish," was working using a life preserver to create an octopus, or maybe a jellyfish. An ordinary garden hose, cut into pieces, made tentacles.

Felix Benassi, 6, was busy with a hammer, trying to break off a piece of metal as his mother watched. She was not worried about her son waving a hammer around.

"Not even a little bit."

"I already have 20 hammers," Felix added. "I also got hit in the eyebrow with a shovel."

That was some time ago, because he doesn't remember how that happened, or how old he was when it happened.

Kathleen Heiskell, visiting from Anchorage, works for a brewery and was in town for Beerfest.

"I got that part done. I want it to be a wind chime," she said. Then she looked at what other people around her were creating. "But is it supposed to be an animal?"

Elsewhere in the garden, when one project didn't come off as planned, Juezeler had some helpful advice.

"You could always do version two," she said.

A "recycled art" contest will be held at the sculpture garden June 16. The event that was held May 25 was separate from the contest.