In 1971, 6-year-old Todd Bank went on a field trip to see the Watts Towers and the experience was life-changing. The youth was mesmerized by the tower’s architecture, and its component parts of broken glass and other found objects.
That fascination for organic, waste art grew into a lifelong passion.
Today, Bank is an artist who has built a career on “zero waste.”
His “Wonderful Wall of Waste” sculpture which has taken more than two decades to create, will be on display this weekend at the annual Fiesta La Ballona at Veterans Park, 4117 Overland Ave., Culver City. Bank’s work will be ready for viewing at 5 p.m., Friday, Aug. 25 in the parking lot near the Teen Center.
The wall comprises 99 percent post-consumer waste materials, and stands 8 feet high, is 50 feet long and 8 inches wide at the base, while weighing a svelte 3.5 tons — which is scaled down considerably, the artist notes.
“It used to be 100 feet (in length) but I recently had to disassemble some of the sculptures and throw them away,” Bank says. “I simply could not afford to store them at the time.”
Three months ago, Bank says he reconnected with Catherine Vargas, the city of Culver City’s environmental coordinator, whom he had met years earlier at a zero-waste event.
“I just thought to send her some new information about an interesting zero-waste exhibition I wanted to do with my personal art collection,” Bank says. “(Vargas) contacted me right away because she was already planning a special zero-waste exhibit at the Fiesta this year. I just called her at the perfect time.”
But timing and opportunity have not always favored Banks.
He says that the Wonderful Wall of Waste was met with walls of disapproval, and like so many artists who have endured much rejection, he was questioning his resolve to continue.
“In 2015, I had been turned down and rejected so many times by art galleries and museums, I was really not feeling very confident about the art,” Bank recalls. “Also, because it costs me about $2,500 a year to store in storage, which is a lot of money for me.”
His luck turned when an unusual opportunity arose.
“I saw an online advertisement looking for a giant art installation,” Bank said. “It was the Night on Broadway, (Los Angeles City) Councilmember Jose Huizar’s annual art and music festival in Downtown L.A. I submitted and won a spot for my ‘Wonderful Wall of Waste’ installation right in the middle of the festival. I was not expecting any good reaction though because I had lost all my confidence knowing that no galleries or museums wanted to exhibit it.”
The public’s response at the Broadway event was unexpected — and encouraging.
His ‘Great’ Wall of Waste was the most popular attraction at the 2017 Night on Broadway, as reported on the Waste-Art organization’s website: “Over 70,000 people came to see some of the wildest acts and works of art. The Great Wall of Waste was highlighted in the very center of the festival and was a huge hit with the crowd!”
“They were so enthusiastic and their reaction was incredibly positive, it reminded me that I am making art for the public and not for gallery or museum curators,” Bank says. “If that show did not go well, I am pretty sure I might have taken all the sculptures to the landfill by now.”
Bank says of his waste wall, that it is ever-changing, always evolving and prime for growth.
“It’s never complete. If someone offered me the land or a permanent place to build it longer, I would make it a mile long and have as much fun with it as possible,” Bank says. “I even thought to make it stretch for hundreds of miles or turn its initial idea into a theme park or something big like that. It is a perfect project to redirect huge amounts of waste materials away from landfills and into a work of public art.”
Born during the time of the Watts riots in 1965, Bank grew up in West Los Angeles. His father Douglas Bank was a TV and theater actor, who was one of the founders of the Beverly Hills Playhouse. His uncle Frank Bank played Clarence “Lumpy” Rutherford in the “Leave It To Beaver” TV series, 1957-1963.
Bank graduated from Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, never attended college nor married. Along with his older brother in the 1970s, they pioneered the BMX Freestyle stunt and acrobatic bike riding craze in Palms and Culver City.
Early in his art career, he was a “conventional” painter. His inspirations were masters such as Van Gogh, Picasso, and Signac. He was attracted to the artist lifestyle.
“Then I began making giant sculptures out of objects I found because I found painting a little boring and sedentary,” he said.
He started creating zero-waste sculptures in 1994. However, giant sculptures have their downside, Bank found out. He quickly filled his Santa Monica apartment studio with these massive art pieces.
“The problem that I did not think about when I was young and began making large zero-waste sculptures though was their weight,” Bank says. “Now, the older I get I can barely move some of my bigger sculptures. Right now, my life is all about making sure my Wonderful Wall of Waste is all packed up and ready to roll out the door so the whole production runs smoothly.”
To give his large art mobility, he added wheels to each sculpture. This allowed Bank to “move back and forth to assemble into different art installations with zero-waste themes.”
The inspiration behind the Wonderful Wall project was to give people a front-row view of a trash dumpsite.
“I just thought it would be cool to make a wall that represented what the inside of a landfill looks like,” Bank says. “It is kind of like a slice of a landfill.”
While waste art has its personal fulfillment for Bank, he says it makes him no money, runs up an atrocious bill for storage, is not “very pretty,” and has an uncertain future.
“I know this statement sounds strange, but the wall and some of my art is not meant to make people totally excited or happy like a giant dolphin or portrait of Marylyn Monroe made with the same type waste materials,” Bank says. “The latter artworks make people think about the materials they were created with but not act to help fix the problem that is associated with them. By making the wall represents a real landfill, in an artistic and visceral way, it will hopefully make the public feel more about why it was built. The biggest problem is that most people have never been to a landfill, so they don’t get the ugliness.
“The City of Old Pasadena, Athens Services of Los Angeles, a waste management company and Stow It Storage have helped in the past pay for some of the exhibition expenses,” he says. “Without them, my sculptures would never have ever left my storage containers.”
It is a struggle to find events and venues to display his art, Bank says. Most shows “don’t want landfill-type artwork for their shows.” He is learning to work with cities in L.A. County to promote zero waste.
One long-term goal is a facility to house his work.
“I have enough work started and completed to build a zero-waste art museum, which I hope is in Los Angeles somewhere,” he says. “I am not in a rush though with that project.”
For now, he is content to share his work with the community in which he was raised.
“This opportunity at the Fiesta is the longest exhibition so far,” says Bank, the founder of WASTE ART, a forward-thinking zero-waste art studio. “I also have more time to set it up than in the past. Building it, exhibiting it and packing it all up in one day is a huge amount of work. And yes, I have asked around for years hoping to find some kind of assistance, but this is a truly unusual project and nothing else has come of my requests. That is why I am very grateful to Culver City and the few others that have allowed me to show this art.”
KABC TV will be covering this year’s Fiesta La Ballona, Bank says. He hopes the Wonderful Wall of Waste will get some airtime.
“If that happens, it will be great exposure for my zero-waste art and the lifestyle that comes with it.”
For those wanting more information about the Wonderful Wall of Waste or about artist Todd Bank, visit his website at www.toddbankart.com. The Fiesta La Ballona takes place from Friday to Sunday, Aug. 23-25 at Veterans Park in Culver City.
