Lilly Employees Create Bottle Cap Mural!

I am excited to post pictures of the Lilly employees working on the bottle cap mural.

 All of the employees were so great and brought a spirit of excitement to the project.

Featured are photos of the mural in the process of being completed.

The final photo shows the mural almost done.

 Some of the caps need to be "tweeked."

After texting a photo of the mural to my sister,

Maggie Maggio (http://maggiemaggio.com/color/),

who is a polymer clay artist and colorist,

I decided to change some caps so the strand of orange

continues through the whole piece.

Thanks Maggie for your keen eye.

I totally agree with your suggestion!

The caps also need to be individually screwed down to the boards

so the mural will withstand a long-term installation at the J. Glenn Smith Health Center.

Almost done!!!

Christianity Today Documentary

The trailer video below from Christianity Today is part of a national documentary which will feature organizations and people from six states who are living out their faith in the work place. The six cities include: Portland, Detroit, Richmond, New York, Phoenix and Palo Alto.

I was fortunate to be a part of this documentary - thanks to Vibe of Portland, the music and art education non-profit I worked with while I was in PDX earlier this year.

"Portland is a city of activists." Longtime resident of the Rose City and a pastor at Imago Dei Community, Rick McKinley shares about the unique character of Portland and how that shapes the community of believers.

Here is the link:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/thisisourcity/portland/onportland.html

"Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary,  use words." - St. Francis of Assissi.

Bottle Caps Drying in the Sun

I don't know about you, but I just love seeing all

of these bottle caps drying in the sun.

They remind of spices displayed

at an open-air market in Morocco.

The caps were put out to dry after

being washed in a commercial dishwasher.

They are now all sanitized, clean and sparkly -

and ready for the mural!

New Bottle Cap Creation!!

I am excited to announce that I have been busy working on a new bottle cap creation!

Thanks to LinkedIn, I re-connected with Erin Dorsey, Public Relations Manager for the Office of the Mayor at City of Cleveland. She and I worked together to have my students' Eco-Art exhibit on display at Cleveland's City Hall a couple of years ago (see other posts).

About 8 weeks ago, Erin called to see if I'd be interested in helping to create a mural project for the Eli Lilly day of service. Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical company, has their employees volunteer a day out of their year doing a community service project. They have done all kinds of projects, such as planting trees, trash pick-up, working in soup kitchens, etc. This year, they chose to create art to beautify the J. Glenn Smith Health Center in Cleveland.

Of course, I was thrilled at the chance to participate in this event. I submitted a proposal to Erin and Eli Lilly and my proposal was accepted. I knew the project called for a mural. However, I proposed a mural made out of recycled plastic bottle caps. As long as I could find enough bottle caps, Erin was on board.

After researching sources for recycled plastic bottle caps, I discovered Aveda, maker of hair care and beauty products, collects plastic bottle caps nationwide to recycle into new items. The company's Recycle Caps with Aveda program collects caps through Aveda stores, beauty salons and schools. The caps are shipped to a recycler where they are broken down and re-molded into new caps and containers.

I am in the midst of posting photos to document the process of creating the bottle cap mural. Below are some photos of the bottle caps before and after they were sorted by color. More photos to come....

Aren't they beautiful?