Artist Heather Fortin Rubald calls it kismet.
An exhibit she created with artist Kathryn Vinson depicting sea life out of recycled goods — and its message about the amount of waste we create — will wrap up five days before Earth Day.
So, the duo will hold an Earth Day celebration on Saturday (April 17), complete with a contest for residents who want to try their hands at making recycled art and a trash fashion show.
“It aligns so much with what I’ve been doing,” said Fortin Rubald, who has spent a decade creating art and goods out of post-consumer waste, spreading a message of reducing packaging and reusing what we can, alongside of her creations.
Fourth Street Aquarium has been on display through storefront windows at 126 W. Fourth St. for the past month. The exhibit will culminate with the Earth Day celebration on its last day on display.
Loveland resident Gigi Deal, also an artist who creates jewelry, home decorations and other wearable items out of post-consumer waste, could not pass up the chance to participate in the trash fashion show.
“I thought I would do a mermaid because of the aquarium itself,” said Deal, whose daughter Krista Ford will model her creation in the show. “We’re calling it the Mermaid Queen of Trash Island.”
Her goal is to create a lightweight mermaid costume with a headpiece, and she anticipates creating fish scales out of foil tops off of yogurt tubs.
“I believe in recycling,” said Deal, who creates art and goods out of just about any item she can scavenge. “That’s the way I can do my part in the whole scene of world recycling. I can create out of things that are already here and already headed for a landfill. It can be taken and redesigned, reused, reimagined.”
Her work shares the goal of the Fourth Street Aquarium, to divert waste and to raise awareness.
Fortin Rubald and Vinson said they hoped to create awareness during the month of the exhibit and will close their display by engaging the community with an event from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday. Residents will be able to stop by and see the sea creatures made out of recycled goods one last time, buy artists’ wares that also are made from post consumer waste, and participate themselves.
From noon to 4 p.m., residents can take part in a Remakers Challenge, choosing from a supply of different waste products as well as things like glue, wire and other fasteners, to make their own masterpieces. A fee of $5 covers the cost of materials, and residents can submit a photo of their finished product to be judged by a panel. Winners will be announced at 5 p.m. Saturday in two age groups, 15 and younger and 16 and older, across two categories, most useful use of materials and most artistic.
“Hopefully, it’s a rotating group of people,” Fortin Rubald said. “With hand sanitizer and masks, of course.”
As soon as those winners are announced, the Trash Fashion Show will kick off with an open air runway outside the storefront where people can distance and enjoy the creativity. The design must be made from post-consumer waste products and modeled by a live person. Awards will be given for the best use of recycled materials, the most creative and the most useful.
Fashion show participants must sign up in advance for the free event: www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0d4ba8aa29a4f94-trash
After the celebration wraps up at 6 p.m., the Fourth Street Aquarium will be dismantled, but Fortin Rubald hopes it will not be out of the public eye for good.
She said the artists have received positive feedback so far from the exhibit and hope to shop it out to other locations — for a fee — to keep their message alive.
“I fear that its immediate next spot is a storage unit somewhere,” Fortin Rubald said. “We are actively looking for another place that would want it. … The hope is that this keeps on moving. It’s pretty elastic about how it can be configured, so it can go into lots of different spaces.”
More information on the Earth Day event is available at cutewithaconscience.com/4th-street-aquarium-project.html.
