Since 1971, RECYCLE at The Children's Museum in Boston, has collected and distributed clean industrial surplus materials for use in the arts and in school programs. RECYCLE maintains a network of industrial donors whose factories supply the museum with manufacturing scrap, discontinued product, rejects or mistakes. From these donations, RECYCLE selects and maintains an inventory of interesting and useful materials. Distribution is through a retail center at the museum as well as school and outreach programs. RECYCLE's only source of funding is its retail center and it has been used as a model for many similar programs worldwide.

The RECYCLE Gallery of Industrial Art is The Children's Museum's showcase for artists whose work incorporates materials collected by RECYCLE. The RECYCLE Gallery provides Children's Museum visitors and the surrounding community with an ongoing and accessible fine arts venue.

In this exhibition, Lei-Sanne Doo, Leni Fried, Nancy Natale and Nina Ross combine found objects and RECYCLE materials to develop imagery not possible through more traditional media. The works selected for Factory: Reconsidered are a combination of new work and works previously on exhibition at The Children's Museum. They were chosen to represent the stylistic variations that occur when multiple artists draw from the same resource.

The coincidence of medium ends at the door of the artist's studio. There, the artist will choose appropriate materials for the work in progress, or will allow the materials themselves to dicate the type of work executed. Nina Ross and Lei-Sanne Doo chose to incorporate the found materials with little or no manipulation, while Nancy Natale, in her "Black Relics" series, works the materials into an almost unrecognizable shadow of their original form. Leni Fried takes an entirely different path, using these materials as plates in the printmaking process. They provide the unique textures that give her work a life of its own.

-- James Rohrer, February 1997