‘Re-surgence,' a rendering of the Maumee River, flows through Huntington Center

Artist Sayaka Ganz works on the 58-foot long sculpture 'RE-surgence,' in the Huntington Center. THE BLADE/LISA DUTTON Enlarge | Photo Reprints

Workers begin the installation of the work, which is made from thousands of pieces of blue, green, and purple plastic. THE BLADE/LISA DUTTON Enlarge | Photo Reprints

A section of the sculpture awaits installation. THE BLADE/LISA DUTTON Enlarge | Photo Reprints

One person's trash, another person's treasure, or sometimes even art.

From a small mountain of what was destined to be plastic junk, a trio of artists have assembled a 58-foot-long rendering of the Maumee River, the part that flows through town. Installed this week, it meanders up the wall next to the escalators in the Huntington Center.

Friday, 6 to 8 p.m., people are invited to a sneak peak and to meet the artists of RE-surgence in the center's south lobby at Jefferson Avenue and Huron Street.

The reception will also spotlight another piece of art that was hung in the lobby with little fanfare last fall. Fan-Fare is a group of 15 large, hanging glass panels by Janine Ody-Miller. Each panel is etched with scenes suggesting events that will occur in the arena. [Insider tip: Find the lower right corner of the farthest right glass panel. It's piano sheet music, intricately etched, for the 1928 song, "Sweet Lorainne," a favorite of Toledo jazz pianist Art Tatum.]

Sayaka Ganz, Steve Williams, and Greg Mueller met at Bowling Green State University, where Ganz was earning a master's degree in fine arts, Williams was completing a bachelor's, and Mueller was teaching sculpture. When they learned about the possibility of the commission that resulted in Re-surgence, they teamed up to devise a concept that would involve the community. They submitted an application in 2008, were selected in 2009, and given the all clear in early 2010 when the $39,000 in public and private funding was secured.

"A lot of artists find it's easier to work as a team," said Ganz, who lives in Fort Wayne. "Before I met Greg and Steve, something like this would have been completely out of reach. How could I do that myself? ... We were each doing research and one time we met and Steve brought a map of the Maumee River."

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The pieces include baby bath tubs, busted lawn chairs, paper clips, arm rests from Ned Skeldon Stadium, fly swatters ...

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Some may recall Ganz's nearly life-sized black and white stallions made from plastic discards that leaped off the wall at the entrance to the Canaday Gallery in the Toledo Museum of Art as part of the 2009 Toledo Area Artists' Exhibition. Ganz, 33, has long created art from post-consumer metal and plastic. Her feelings for discards may be difficult for Americans to understand.

"I have a lot of sympathy for them. I think we're very selfish. We create the objects and then throw them away without any thought," she said, noting the Shinto sentiment she was raised with in Japan. "Everything, even these inanimate objects have a spirit. When I was in kindergarten I was taught if we throw something away before its time to go, it weeps in the trash can."

Born in Japan, her family moved to Brazil and Hong Kong, and she attended college in Indiana.

"I've moved so many times and I didn't always feel like I fit in very well. Fitting pieces together gives me a lot of joy. I feel like I'm making them happy, to give them a new place to be."

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Lids and ladles, knives and spoons, measuring cups, strainers, bowls, spatulas, cups, funnels, ice cube trays ...

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The community involvement portion of RE-surgence began last year with people donating blue and green objects to designated collection bins in Toledo and Bowling Green. The artists purchased additional pieces at secondhand stores.

At last fall's Black Swamp Festival, the team had an informational booth where they met staff from the Imagination Station, who offered them work space in the facility's lower level. There, kids and adults were invited to select an object and fasten it with a cable tie onto a piece of aluminum-mesh backing cut to size.

"We opened ourselves up to spending time with kids. I think that's something we should be doing. That's the whole point of this place," Mueller said of Imagination Station; "hands-on learning, recycling, studying the river."

At the June Art Walk downtown, passersby were encouraged to add to the work.

Two thorny issues were figuring out how to attach lighting to the back with LED strips and devising a scaffold system on the escalator from which the sections could be installed.

Given that the Maumee River as it flows through Toledo is brown, why represent it with blue, green, and purple?

"It's more the idea of water than a literal interpretation," said Ganz. "It almost looks like stained glass. We wanted to make it as bright and beautiful as possible."

Perhaps, for some of the hundreds of thousands who will cast their eyes on it in years to come, RE-surgence will suggest thoughts about the troubled health of our 130-mile waterway, born of the merger of the St. Marys and St. Joseph rivers in Fort Wayne. It's long been polluted with run-off from farms, sewers, old dumps, and dredged materials.

A similar concept was recently executed by Maya Lin, the Ohio-born artist who won fame at the age of 21 when her design was selected for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. In October, her depiction of the Colorado River, made of reclaimed silver and called Silver River, was hung over the registration desk at the new Avia Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

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Long, curved pieces of Hot Wheels tracks, bowling pins, helmets, shovels and rakes and buckets for the beach, frisbees, sleds.

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RE-surgence is the last piece of art for the Huntington Center, which opened last year. In September, the $300,000, 27-foot-tall vertical piano keyboard, Art Tatum Celebration Column by Cork Marcheschi, was set in the plaza facing Madison Avenue.

To see images of RE-surgence being built, check the artists' blog at gmwpublicart.wordpress.com.

Contact Tahree Lane at:

tlane@theblade.com

or 419-724-6075.