FLOW – Eric Huebsch

Eric Huebsch

“I’m a bit of a chameleon; I can create using any material. Even though I have a really wide range of skills and ideas, there are conceptual threads that run through all of my work:

environmental health, specifically humanity’s use of the natural world as a bottomless reservoir for both raw material and as a garbage dump, and man’s awkward fumbling through day-to-day life.” Excerpt from

http://shoutoutla.com/meet-eric-huebsch-artist-educator/

As the first artist to be in residency at M4, I was invited specifically to transform waste or recyclable raw plastic into artwork. “Everything I thought I could do, failed. I had to surrender to the material, which completely took me in a different direction.”

Sustainability is more than a responsibility; it’s elevating human creativity to push what is possible to coexist. Working with plastic inspired a whole new set of ideas. While failure is inevitable, it leads to exploration and what is possible.

Eric is an American artist with a quirky but multi-disciplined approach. We brought in Eric Huebsch, a Los Angeles-based multi-media artist to spend the month of August with us. Under the charge of “DE-commoditization”, we asked him to create objects of art that showcased the medium, yet we only provided him obsolete materials and purgings to work with. Eric agreed wholeheartedly to the project. Academically trained as a glassblower, his background working with glass, heat and the elements was extremely beneficial to exploring what was possible and creating in the medium of plastic. After a few initial conversations, he showed up to our design and manufacturing house with plans of what he was going to create. However, after several weeks of working with the medium of plastic, he confessed he was struggling. He said, “Everything I thought I could do, failed. I had to surrender to the material, which completely took me in a different direction.”

In the spirit of trial, error, and perseverance, what he landed on was a collection of beautiful objects of art that not only highlighted the material but inspired other projects back home in LA. During our recap of the program, I asked if he would ever consider something like this again. “Absolutely,” he said. “As difficult as it was, I learned a great deal. Working with plastic inspired a whole new set of ideas. While failure is inevitable, it led to exploration and what is possible.” 

Sustainability is more than a responsibility it’s elevating human creativity