Boston artist Katrina Majkut says she’s been a “green” person her whole life.
When she was 8, Majkut wrote a book report about deforestation for fun. Her parents grew food in a huge vegetable garden outside the house and organized yard sales so their old junk wouldn’t wind up in the trash.
“I was always a very crafty kid and I had to use what was around me,” Majkut says.
It comes as no surprise, then, that the 26-year-old’s latest installation is a testament to recycling.
Art On The Wind, on display in Lars Anderson Park in Brookline, features more than 600 colored pinwheels made entirely of reused materials, including wine corks, coat hangers, and 560 plastic soda bottles.
Majkut assembled the pinwheels over the last several months with the help of local children. She says the project was a way to show the kids how art can communicate messages about environmentalism.
“Recycled materials bring awareness to what you can do with the things around you rather than discard them or go out and purchase new items,” she explained.
Her most recent installation, a display at the 1st Light Festival in Brookline, featured plastic bottles turned into light fixtures and illuminated sculptures made of grape vines.
Art On The Wind is also aimed at helping people re-envision the aesthetics of wind energy and how it is incorporated into the landscape, Majkut says.
“As an artist, my take on [wind energy] is that it doesn’t have to be invasive in our lifestyle and it can be cohesive if we think about it critically.”
Majkut is planning a project with Babson College to extend the pinwheel concept into “something a little more tangible in terms of viable, renewable energy and how it can coexist realistically with people and the landscape.” The project may involve the Olin School of Engineering, which was recently fitted with its own environmentally friendly wind turbine.
Other future projects includes an exhibit with Amnesty International and a benefit art show with the Trustees of Preservation.
Top photo courtesy of Matthew Stein.