Artist uses small, found objects as her medium

It’s one thing to pick up a piece of garbage and toss it into the nearest trash can. It’s another thing to look at the trash, ponder its innate and strange beauty and decide to incorporate it into a piece of art.

For the last year, that’s just what artist D.K. Sole did. The result is the latest show at the Winchester Cultural Center, 3130 McLeod Drive, called “or, Some Time Ago.”

The phrase is a truncation of the title of a 19th-century Australian novel, “Bengala: or, Some Time Ago,” which Sole said would never have been written if the author had not traveled and picked up materials wherever she found them.

“It’s literally stuff that I find when I walk down the street,” Sole said. “I find it when I walk across car parks (parking lots) and when I take walks in the evening.”

The project began when the recent Australian emigre began to experiment with materials at the ArtBar in the Marjorie Barrick Museum at UNLV, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, where she first was a volunteer and then was hired as a staff member. The Art Bar has surplus materials donated to the museum, and the idea is that visitors can experiment and use the items to create art.

“I got sort of addicted to it, but I didn’t want to use up all the materials at the Art Bar,” Sole said. “That’s when I started using the objects I’d find. Eventually, people heard what I was doing and they’d bring me things they would find, like a broken toy or something.”

Sole cited the rich history of artists working with found objects, including Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Tuttle and Picasso.

Sole’s found items are manipulated, combined and wired together. Most are about hand-sized, and they are displayed in the show in small groups.

“I’ve dotted them up and down the wall,” Sole said. “There’s open space. I didn’t want it to seem crowded.”

Once the concept for her show was approved and scheduled, she went into overdrive, creating over 500 pieces in a year. About 100 are on display in the show.

Sole intends to switch out some pieces over time at the gallery to keep the show fresh.

“The work has a quiet elegance to it,” said Darren Johnson, curator for the Clark County Government Center Rotunda Gallery and the Winchester Cultural Center Gallery. “I was attracted to it right away.

“I wasn’t sure about showing it at first, because I wasn’t sure how people would react to it. They’re small, quiet works, and I wasn’t sure how they’d be received in a city of big, flashy things.”

Ultimately, the decision was an easy one, Johnson said.

“I think that part of our job at the gallery is to show work that people can enjoy and at the same time stretches the mind,” Johnson said.

The show is set to be on display through March 13. For more information, visit clarkcountynv.gov or call 702-455-7340.

Contact East Valley View reporter F. Andrew Taylor at ataylor@viewnews.com or 702-380-4532.