Sandy Springs art show reclaims what we throw away

What if the things we typically toss could be remade into something beautiful? Two Atlanta artists focused their April 2026 exhibition at the Abernathy Arts Center in Sandy Springs on exactly that proposition.

“Unexpected Reclamations,” a 48-piece exhibition featuring the work of Cathy Ehrler and Kathy Rennell Forbes opened the first week of April and closes the third week of May. The art pieces are built from post-consumer waste, handmade paper and found objects. The opening reception is Tuesday, April 22. 

Finding potential in what gets thrown away

Ehrler, an environmental artist, constructs mosaics and assemblages from broken CDs, foam core, plastic cartons, aluminum cans and other discarded objects. 

“For me, the difference between art and trash isn’t fixed. It’s about potential,” Ehrler said. “I look for color, texture, shape, and sometimes even the story behind an object.”

“Lotus Love,” a mosaic Ehrler created after a trip to Vietnam, includes small objects she collected on the streets there. The visit stayed with her, she said, because of how little waste she came across compared to life in the United States.

“There’s a stronger sense of valuing possessions and being mindful of what is used and discarded,” she said. “‘Lotus Love’ reflects that contrast.”

Failed paintings, reclaimed

A signature member and past president of the Georgia Watercolor Society, Forbes has spent decades as a painter and instructor. Private and corporate collections around the world hold her impressionistic works, including the French Olympic Committee in Paris and Atlanta’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart. But a growing pile of paintings she considered failures ultimately redirected her practice.

Forbes planned to burn them. Ehrler encouraged her to reconsider. What followed was a turn toward papermaking: Forbes studied history and mechanics at the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking at Georgia Tech, then began shredding and blending her discarded watercolor, painted on 100-percent cotton paper, into handmade sheets. She now paints over older works, then adds the reclaimed paper to the surfaces.

“I see fragments of my artistic past — shredded pieces of paper and layers of earlier paintings — coming together in a new form,” Forbes said.

“Broken Hearted,” one of her “Unexpected Reclamations” pieces, began as a homage to the bleeding-heart flowers that grew in her grandfather’s garden. Midway through, though, the work shifted, as Forbes realized it was bringing forth feelings of longing and separation from family. The flower remained, but the painting became less a botanical study and more an abstract expression of emotions. 

Two practices, one studio

Ehrler and Forbes share studio space at Studio Z in Atlanta’s Westside Arts District, a proximity both artists say shapes their work, though their approaches are very different. Ehrler works with consumer-culture cast-offs; Forbes mines the ruins of her own archive. Both ask the same underlying question, though: what does it mean to give something a second life?

For Forbes, whose floral and landscape paintings draw on Atlanta’s tree canopy and the natural beauty of the city’s neighborhoods, working with reclaimed paper has opened new territory.

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“I hope audiences see that failure is not something to fear,” Forbes said. “It’s an essential part of the creative process. Many of these works incorporate pieces of paintings that didn’t initially succeed. Rather than discarding them, I’ve found ways to give them new life.”

Ehrler, for her part, wants visitors to be surprised by their own recognition. “From a distance, I want the work to feel beautiful, even inviting,” she said. “And then, as they get closer and realize what it’s made of, there’s a moment of recognition: ‘This is what we throw away.’”