Can paintings live outside? Would it be possible to have a garden live within a painting? In an exhibition called Inside Outside, Fabric 8 challenged local artists Daniel James Burt and Romanowski to re-think painting from an outdoor perspective. The artists jumped right in (jumped right out?) in creating unique indoor and outdoor found object and plant assemblage and sculptures.

Beautifully integrated into the artwork are bits of chia pet plants and air plants that derive their water from the air, requiring little to no maintenance. The artists collaborated with Flora Grubb Gardens to determine exactly what type of plants would be best suited to this new art environment. “We do not have green thumbs,” Fabric 8 co-founder Olivia Ongpin explained, “So we knew that if we could keep these pieces alive, anyone could.”

Fabric 8 started out as an Internet business selling unique items by urban independent designers. Their small retail store located beneath a San Francisco Victorian residence in the Mission has now expanded to include a gallery in the back as well as a backyard garden gallery. When I stopped by earlier today, they were preparing the space for a wedding reception over the weekend.

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They say it’s what’s on the inside that counts, but maybe not when it comes to mini-mounds of Babybel Cheese.

You pull on a center strip seal to open the package.

You eat the yummy cheese inside, perhaps with a cracker and some grapes.

You throw the red wax wrapper away? No way, Jose!

Not if you are 10-year-old Hazel Olson Dorf, a budding San Francisco eco artist who molds the wax into characters to create her highly-original miniature sculptures.

“I was playing with it one day and made a ball with a face in it and thought it was very cool,” shares the 4th grader about the process. “The next time I got some cheese wax, I made another guy.”

Featured in an exhibit in the lobby of Brandeis Hillel Day School in San Francisco, Hazel’s cheese wax characters are born of great imagination and embellished with found discarded objects the student finds at the homes of her friends.

Among the props that bring the balls to life are tiny shopping carts, gold paper coins, candy wrappers, broken pencils and safety pins. She spares these items from the trash, reclaiming them as treasures for the humorous and whimsical beings.

“They’re mostly weird dudes, not exactly human,”  says Hazel, who has named a couple of them Alfonse and Spike.

“Hazel’s art is part of an innovative art movement in which artists choose to recycle and reclaim materials rather than use traditional art supplies,” observes Angela Willetts, a painter and art instructor at Brandeis Hillel. “Not only does her work look good but it also helps to save the planet.”

Willetts fosters an appreciation of green design at the school, overseeing projects all year that incorporate everyday household items from old socks for creating Ugly Dolls to used plastic wrap for peopling life-size sculptures in motion.

While the wax would seem a hard medium to transmogrify, Hazel has the process down.

“I actually hold it in my hands to warm it up for a while until it softens,” she explains, “and then I begin molding the balls.”

The only challenge for her is keeping up her supply of Babybel wrappers. “I eat the cheese, sometimes, but usually I rely on my friends to bring it in their lunches,” she says.

Like most artists, Hazel connects with other visionaries who see the world in a similar way. Her best friend, Lauren Kate Bradley, explores works on paper – that is,  paper towels and cocktail napkins that have been gently used at her house.

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Noted Bay Area artist Joan Elan Davis is still working her magic with flowers – but this time she has moved them off the canvas and planted them skillfully onto the wrist. At least that is where they pop and bloom when you buckle on one of her new cuffs introduced for spring 2009. Aren’t they the grooviest? I love the marriage of the elements she has employed.

The retooled leather straps are adorned with found floral forms and other objects that ooze a 70s sensibility, evoking the spirit of those mod wide watches with changeable snapping bands. Mine were patent leather!

In turning to jewelry, Davis took her cue from her wildflower series of paintings now hanging at the Ritz Carlton, Lake Tahoe, and in other prestigious private collections. Adding sparkle are the vintage gems and stones that are tossed into the interesting asymmetrical designs.

“The colorful mix of found objects was inspired by the coming of spring, a time of rebirth and renewal for all of us,” the painter told me.

Davis, who has studios in Tahoe and at the San Francisco design center (across the street from Showplace Square) is known for bold canvases and works on paper like her “power flower” studies in which she expands tiny elements of nature into grand proportions, allowing us a bird’s eye view of what we often take for granted.

In recent years, she moved into the interior design district of San Francisco to collaborate with furniture showrooms like McGuire, which featured her abstract and floral works as backdrop for its modern rattan furnishings earlier this year.

“Designers are creative people who enjoy working with color and style,” Davis observes. “Great creativity goes into designing a home. It’s a real pleasure to be part of that process.”

The one-of-a-kind art cuffs, $50, will be available in April at Joan Davis Art Studios.

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