Lather Up for Art

Do you throw away your bar of soap when it gets so tiny that it becomes more frustrating than functional? Well, don't. Instead, call on Jill Greenberg: The 41-year-old, Baltimore-based artist is amassing a collection of other people's stubs o' suds to be assembled into a future art project -- and no sliver of soap is too small.

While she welcomes all contributions, certain soaps top Greenberg's wish list. "I'm real low on pinks," she says. "Colors, in general, really: blue, yellow and pinks. I'm only heavy on green." So far, Greenberg's soap sources have included friends, neighbors, fellow artists and the inmates at a Milwaukee county jail (the deputy sheriff found out about the project on Craigslist).

Her quest is part of the year-long Accumulation Project, a concept started by New York-based community-arts organization Other Leading Brand. It includes 21 artists, who have been gathering such diverse items as dust, mattresses, yellow things and opinions since September. Each artist's progress is tracked on the Web site http://www.accumulationproject.org , and a show of their final artistic compositions is being planned for next September. (If you happen to be in New York this week, you can check out the artists' progress at Brooklyn's Lunarbase Gallery through Saturday; Greenberg is making a mosaic out of her burgeoning collection.)

So, come September, what's she going to do with all that soap? Greenberg's not sure. She's thinking about constructing an installation that addresses both the contrasting origins and colors (or lack thereof) of the prison and "free" soap. "The bottom line is, it has to look good," she says.

Justin Rude

To find out if your soap slivers can help the cause, e-mail Jill Greenberg at http://jillgreenberg27@hotmail.com with the brand, color and any soapy stories you can spare.