Chewing gum becomes art
By Trystan L. Bass
More from Green Picks blog
For most people, chewing gum on a city street is a nuisance. In hot weather, the gum becomes a sticky trap for your shoes. In cold weather, it's slick as ice. And the disused gum is an annoyance that costs cities thousands of dollars to clean up.
In 2008, Norfolk, Virginia, purchased an $8,000 machine to remove unsightly chewing gum from the streets. Tempe, Arizona, instituted a daily "clean team" in January 2010 to deal with gum and related messes downtown.
What these places really need is an artist like Ben Wilson -- he turns chewing gum on the sidewalks of London into miniature paintings. Using acrylic paints and small brushes, Wilson paints abstract art, figures, faces, and custom works. He's been featured in British newspapers and the BBC, and Wilson has created over 10,000 gum-based pieces of public art.
While this isn't an excuse to spit out your gum on the street, these painting certainly do brighten up an otherwise dreary sidewalk! Wilson shows how you can create art from most anything, even other people's garbage. It's reusing and recycling for the public good.
See more photos of Wilson's work on Flickr here and here.
(Photo courtesy of Salim Fadhley / Flickr.)
(Photo courtesy of Rahid Khan / Flickr.)
(Photo courtesy of Rahid Khan / Flickr.)
(Photo courtesy of Salim Fadhley / Flickr.)
(Photo courtesy of Rahid Khan / Flickr.)
