Sculpture of trash supports cause

Staff report

NILES

A sculpture created from trash has begun to take shape at Eastwood Mall.

Artist Erica Raby today began installing Hope Tree in the mall’s Center Court.

The sculpture will be made entirely of post- consumer waste (plastic bottles, containers, packaging material, bottle caps, plastic bags and newspaper), salvaged materials, pigment, glue, string and plaster.

The tree sculpture will be constructed from hundreds of plastic bottles, bound together for strength.

It will be dedicated to the mission of the No Stone Unturned Foundation.

The non-profit foundation supports children with developmental and neurological disorders and their families, and advocates for research.

Visitors may leave words of hope and encouragement on tags and then suspend them in the tree for others to see and take with them.

Monetary donations to the No Stone Unturned Foundation will be accepted.

Hope Tree will be on display through early November.

Raby is an artist and adjunct art professor from the Akron area.

She graduated from The University of Mount Union in Alliance with a bachelor’s degree in art.

She went on to earn masters of fine art in 2009 from Kent State University.

Since graduating, she has been a visiting artist at the Torpedo Factory Art Center near Washington, D.C., and created many mixed-media installations in Northeast Ohio and the Washington area.

Raby’s primary medium is reused objects and post-consumer waste.

Her sculpture and drawings are designed to portray anxieties, uncertainties, absurdities and the overall fragility of our world.