ONE PERSON'S TRASH IS LOCAL ARTIST'S TREASURE

It all began with a simple request for for one of Echo Park resident Robin Hercia’s many artistic creations … until a local curmudgeon tried to put the kibosh on the whole thing.

By profession, Hercia is an Art Director and Graphic Designer who moved to the Echo Park area of Los Angeles three years ago, where she opened the doors of her AWMYL Studios. Hercia, it is important to note, is a recycler. A BIG TIME recycler. While most creative/design businesses like hers go through lots and lots of raw materials, Hercia goes to great lengths to consciously recycle/reuse every drop of paint/ink, each scrap of paper, and all the chemicals used to create custom fabrics and wallpaper, signage and print materials, and even a set of divination cards for an international yoga instructor.

When she decided to embark on a large-scale art project in late 2014, it was only natural that she would reach out to the community for the raw materials. After all, the resulting work of art was to be, in her whimsical pitch to neighboring residents, “installed in the neighborhood for everyone to enjoy until a velociraptor destroys it …” Hercia posted signs throughout the area calling for folks to phone or text her if they have any unused big or medium cardboard boxes.

A fine artist at heart, Hercia’s studio is filled with her creations, some of which have been exhibited locally as well as in Miami and Montreal’s Yves Laroche Gallery. However, this piece would require a much larger space. Hercia’s call for cardboard boxes as the raw materials for her creation brought out the best and worst. The signs were posted for about 4 weeks (at which time she returned to each location to remove them) and, on the one hand, she says “people were so supportive, and contacted me to contribute tons of boxes.” On the other, however, some unknown art Grinch was having none of it. Noodles, as the person called themselves, posted their own signs alongside Hercia’s, which read “It will be burned outside my home in the neighborhood for everyone I invite to enjoy … I will destroy your art.”

Sorry Noodles, but nothing so dramatic as a funeral pyre for Hercia’s project ever came to pass. In fact, once completed, as promised, the piece was displayed for the community to see … right on Echo Park Avenue at Vega’s Meat Market, the neighborhood’s hip underground performance space. And Noodles notwithstanding, Hercia’s neighbors seemed to enjoy the large installation very much, which then travelled to Art Basel in Miami, prompting NY-based art curator Lori Zimmer to include and document the project in her book The Art of Cardboard.

Hercia was recently tapped as Art Director by Dev Mason, the nationally accredited software development training company, to oversee all art-related endeavors for the school, with campuses launching in five major U.S. cities. And with plenty of cardboard donated by her Echo Park neighbors remaining, she is working on her next project, to be unveiled in the coming months.

Take THAT, Noodles. :-)