Two pieces by Beverly Ostrowiecki were selected by the Riverside Art Center for their Anything…But New show. Curated by Maggie Spencer, the Anything But New show challenged artists to create art using non traditional material. On display from December 5, 2025 through January 5, 2026, About 60 pieces were included by 30 artists.

Responding to “Anything But…New Materials” I was drawn to reflect on “daily activities.” Actions we do repeatedly that offer opportunities for newness and exploration.  Shopping and water use floated to top of mind. 

Paper shopping bags have become part of a retail purchase experiences as we answer yes or no to bag.  Sometimes, a bag is necessary. I started saving paper bags as a reusable, affordable resource for sketching. But as sketching goes, you never know when a resulting composition becomes memorable. Oxen and Artist achieved that status. 

Oxen and Artist

Several interpretations are possible about the oxen, artist, and jungle-like space. The oxen is a traditional symbol for work. Be the work plowing fields or plodding along. The sinuous artists with bulging eye and outstretched hand is focused on a grouping of vases, which can represent usefulness, potential, and especially for me, creativity and beauty like in a flower vase. It’s finding a balance between work and creativity that inspires this artist.

Wing Woman Offers Homage to Water

Water increasingly rare or too much, ubiquitous, highly useful, is used, abused, filtered, and treated numerous times on its journey from cloud to river to aquifer to ocean.  The engineering drawing from 1987 specifies the control strategies for a Detroit water processing facility. Electronic controls, though simpler than today’s computer driven technologies, indicate the opening and closing of valves, timing, temperatures to process Detroit public water. Here a woman offers gratitude in the form of a found dragonfly wing to water.