On Pin {wheels} and Needles

A couple of months ago, I got a call from the Castro Valley Sanitary District (huh?), telling me that they were looking for local artists to submit recycled artwork to be installed at the headquarters of Stopwaste.org. 

Stopwaste.org is the umbrella organization for our county's waste management and recycling agencies. Their building on Webster Street in downtown Oakland is an amazing example of green renovation. Their story is here if you're interested. 

The artwork was to be permanently displayed on a second-story mezzanine above the lobby, so it had to be large enough to be seen from below, and made from recycled materials.

After a couple of rounds of judging, I was sooo nervous, thinking I was a dork for submitting it, and how embarassing it was going to be to have to go pick it back up.  I was on pins and needles for a couple of weeks, and I couldn't believe that they chose my project along with two others to be installed in that beautiful building. 

Can you tell what this made from?

Close Up:

It's probably a little hard to tell, but this pinwheel is 4 feet in diameter. Yes, it works, and no, I didn't drink all of that soda myself!  I'm more of an iced tea person... 



How many cans do you think it took?

I learned 2 very important lessons on the way to completing this project:

1)  You can't iron aluminum cans to flatten them. They get HOT 

2)  Sewing them together?  Also not a great idea...

I really had fun with this, and I'm thinking how neat it would be to make little pinwheels out of individually-flattened cans. Look for them in the shop soon.

 Cheers,