WMODA (Wiener Museum Of Decorative Art) takes the message of Earth Day, 2022 to a heightened level on Saturday, April 23 with Jenna Efrein‘s exhibit, “The Outside Is In · Upcycled Glass Art and Design”.  Efrein’s upcycled glass bottles draws attention to issues of sustainability while elevating the value of nature in our daily lives.  WMODA is truly a special place to see creativity and history in a one-of-a-kind setting.  The Rickie Report shares the details of this exhibit and some sneak peeks of Jenna’s glasswork creations. You will also be refreshed by Topo Chico’s range of flavored waters and inspired by Jenna’s activism in glass art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SATURDAY,   APRIL 23,  2022

1  –  4  PM

 

 

Experience Jenna’s activism in glass art

Refreshments courtesy of Topo Chico

 

 

 

 

Gallery Hours:  Tuesday – Saturday   10 am – 4 pm

 

 

Glass artist and environmental activist Jenna Efrein

 

 

The theme of Earth Day 2022 is Invest in our Planet.A green future is a prosperous future and it needs everyone to create a partnership for the planet and restore nature. Since moving to Florida from New York, artist Jenna Efrein is particularly concerned about the fate of the Everglades ecosystem and advocates for its protection with her glass art installations. Her exhibition The Outside Is In · Upcycled Glass Art and Design by Jenna Efrein opens at WMODA on Saturday, April 23 to mark Earth Day 2022.

 

 

 

Using hundreds of upcycled glass bottles, Jenna Efrein creates art that draws attention to issues of sustainability and environmental pollution. She is elevating the value of nature in our daily lives and reflecting on the deteriorating ecosystem and loss of the local flora and fauna.  Jenna tells The Rickie Report, “I upcycle glass and plastic bottles and plastic bags into sculptures and installations. I blow, fuse, bend, cast, and flamework bottle glass, sometimes obfuscating its original form, sometimes not. The plastic remains as it is and will be for eons. I am the local recycling center for those in my community, giving purpose to their trash”.

 

 

 

Jenna Efrein recycles a glass bottle and creates a fish

 

 

 

Thematically, Jenna’s art spans from ecology to community and the space in-between. Her work brings socioecological concerns to the forefront of peoples’ minds. She shares, “I utilize the familiarity and luster of the material. The work expresses beauty and calamity. Collectively, it creates an environment to seduce, emphasize and create space for conversation. We make a difference, together”.

 

 

 

 

“Sea Turtle” by Jenna Efrein

 

 

 

Now or Neverglades!

 

 

Florida was originally an impenetrable wasteland of marshlands, swamps, and tangled mangrove forests but through dredging and draining, it has become one of the most popular states in the US to live, work, and play. This fragile ecosystem is under threat from the rapidly growing metropolitan centers. The Everglades are essential to the region’s tourism economy and quality of life. More than eight million people rely on drinking water so protecting the environment and the imperiled water supply is crucial for the future of Florida. “Restoration simply cannot wait. It’s Now or Neverglades!” claims Dawn Shirreffs, an Everglades Policy Advisor.

 

Disoriented

 

Florida’s marine environment is an ecological and aesthetic jewel with rolling seagrass meadows and vibrant coral reefs. The productivity and health of the reefs are important to our well-being, but global and local pollution is devastating this underwater paradise. Trash is suffocating our oceans, particularly the glut of single-use plastic bottles and bags which confuse sea life. For example, sea turtles eat plastic garbage which they mistake for jellyfish. New-born turtles are disoriented by streetlights, car headlights, and human light pollution that they follow rather than moonlight into the sea. Only 1 in 1000 baby sea turtles survive to mate 10 to 40 years after birth depending upon the species. Jenna’s installation features a stool inspired by a hawksbill turtle and lots of small turtles made of recycled glass.

 

 

 

 

“Monument to an Alligator” by Jenna Efrein

 

 

Swamp Flipped

 

Swamp Flipped takes a vision of the swamp and re-orients its position. By fusing and hot sculpting recycled bottle glass, Jenna creates a chandelier symbolic of luxury out of seemingly worthless materials. Her functional glass art is inspired by the terrain that the threatened endangered animals inhabit. The shimmering light reflects on water choked with blue-green algae formed of crushed bottle glass. Swimming through the installation are white alligators made from old vodka bottles. In Jenna’s Monument to the Alligator, she asks the question “What if we are the generation to kill the last dinosaur?” “What if the only way we could know about much of the natural world was to go into a museum due to extinction?”

 

 

 

 

“Marsh Rabbit” by Jenna Efrein

 

 

 

Oh, where art thou dear rabbit…

 

 

As well as environmental challenges such as sea-level rise and climate change, invasive species imperil native plants and animals. Burmese pythons are now the dominant predators of marsh rabbits and other small mammals in the Everglades National Park and they are upsetting the balance of a valuable ecosystem. The high reproductive rates of rabbits make them typically resistant to predators, but scientific surveys show that is not the case in Florida. Marsh rabbits used to be abundant in higher freshwater marshes, pinelands, and coastal prairies and could sometimes be seen swimming, having adapted to their wet world. Jenna has crafted marsh rabbits from old beer bottles and “trapped” them in the clear glass bellies of pythons.

 

 

 

 

 

Chandelier of Recycled Topo Chico bottles by Jenna Efrein

 

 

 

Topo Chico

Recently, Jenna has been recycling Topo Chico’s glass bottles and the company has been supporting her exhibitions with their sparkling mineral waters. Legend has it that an Aztec princess was refreshed after a long journey by drinking and bathing in the crystalline waters of the Cerro del Topo and the springs at Monterrey in Mexico have provided mineral-rich water since 1895.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Rickie Leiter, Publisher

Rickie@therickiereport.com   561-537-0291

17019 SW Sapri Way   Port St. Lucie, FL 34986