On a small, dark stage, Venus slowly materializes, walking silently toward us in a diaphanous robe, holding a chalice and a sheath of wheat, her eyes distant. Jupiter, looking like Dionysus, sits on an invisible chair holding a jester's toy, laughing at something he's just heard from sly Mercury, who slowly floats by. Neptune the mystic crouches, bare-headed, waiting, looking beyond us.

A huge foam cornucopia, curling in a massive yellowish shape, fills up the entire front window of the Leger Gallery in its current exhibit. Instead of the smooth perfect curve of a mathematical spiral, we have an unevenly textured solidified liquid used in a completely new way to describe the flow of thought and time and nature. With an industrial material normally used to insulate houses, Terry Rathje has created a buoyant example of the lively and inventive presentation inside.

The use of found objects carries an up-front challenge to artists. Do you try to transform the identity of the "junk" by visually turning it into something else? Or do you accept the object (and all of its cultural baggage) for what it is and shape your artistic statement to incorporate the materials and their recognizability?

This was one of many issues faced by several local artists who participated in the Mississippi Palette project this year. The artists teamed up with the Artists Advisory Council, high-school and college students, environmentalist Chad Pregracke, and his Living Lands & Waters organization to create eight found-material sculptures.

Information from the Annual Manual for the Arts is available in JPG and PDF formats. Click on the links below to view the files...