Recycled Glass Bottles: A Sculptural Spectacle In Green

You want to make a difference in the world but you're not exactly sure quite how. Lifestyle changes? Sure, you've made plenty of them but you're always left wondering how you can take the concept of sustainable living to the next level. Sometimes, all it takes is one shining idea...one fine master plan to meld eco-responsibility with public education and a generous dose of pizzazz.

It just so happens that the owner of Ideas on Legs has figured it all out. If the ideal platform to showcase your environmental leanings doesn't yet exist in the real world, then why not just carve out a highly individualized niche for yourself instead?

That's precisely what Bill Hess has done for the past 12 years. The former mechanical engineer - who has authored many a paper focusing on medical research and has even received multiple patents, grants, design awards in his "previous life" -- is now what you might call a full-time eco-sculptor, lecturer and educator.

Today, however, his main mission is to highlight ecological and sustainable design by creating products and works of art that use recycled glass in unexpected ways, yielding creations "that emerge with intelligence, fun, mindfulness and dynamics." The fact that he has always derived great pleasure out of transforming waste into treasure is in keeping with his desire to "connect more deeply to the earth - not just spiritually, but also physically and emotionally."

The Virginia-based eco-artisan only recently became drawn to recycled glass as a way to inject his metal sculptures with more light and color, finding himself so enamored with the material that he taught himself how to kiln-form discarded bottles (which is not as easy as it sounds).

Becoming a self-described glass alchemist, Hess has amassed quite an impressive portfolio of works which clearly demonstrate that he is a master of his eco-craft. One of his most outstanding pieces, commissioned for Chicago's 2009 NEXT Art Fair is this Grolsch Glass Bottle Spiral Topiary consisting entirely of recycled beer bottles, wood, PVC, wire and rope lighting. The attached video offers a behind-the-scenes look into how Hess ended up executing the entire piece. Talk about being a spectacular vision in green!