What: Fiesta mask from Loiza Aldea, Puerto Rico.
Where you can find it: On exhibit in “Lost and Found: Art Through Recycled Objects” at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, 416 N. Indiana Ave.
Why you should care: Made from a wire mesh screen, tape and pigment, this mask demonstrates that items from the trash, such as used rubber tires, plastic bottles, tin cans and bottle caps, can still create art. It also incorporates cheap household items, like plastic wrap, aluminum foil and packing tape. Art created from found objects (that is, objects not created for artistic purposes) are given new lives as useful and fun toys, musical instruments and representational sculptures. People find items that have little or no value in their original form and creatively manipulate them into something special.
