Artist Laurel Roth Hope has spent more than two decades turning San Francisco's discarded materials into stunning wildlife sculptures, drawing inspiration from urban birds that build nests with whatever they can scavenge from city streets. This spring, Hope struck gold when she was selected as one of six artists for San Francisco's prestigious Recology Artists in Residence program, where she spent four months creating art from materials sourced directly from the public dump.

When Hope first moved from rural Sonoma County to San Francisco over twenty years ago, the urban maze of noise and concrete left her feeling disoriented. As a former park ranger, she found comfort by observing how birds thrived in the city environment, adapting to their surroundings by foraging materials from streets to build their homes. Following their example, Hope began collecting salvaged materials like yarn, wood, and industrial acrylic paint from scrapyards, transforming these discarded items into remarkable works of art.

During her residency at Recology, Hope discovered some extraordinary finds while sifting through the dump in her hazmat suit. Among her most notable discoveries were a fully functional drum set, a perfectly intact stand-up mixer, and a complete set of scuba gear. "Sometimes somebody's whole house is dumped after an estate sale," Hope explained, describing the treasure trove of materials that arrive daily at the facility.

The artistic process at Recology follows a precise routine. While Hope worked in her studio, trucks continuously backed up to the loading dock at the transfer station, pushing out piles of personal possessions. The resident artists, dressed in protective hazmat suits, carefully picked through the objects, loading their carts and sanitizing their found treasures with alcohol spray before tractors arrived to crush everything that remained unclaimed.

One particularly moving discovery during Hope's residency was the death certificate of a decorated war veteran who had died from a drug overdose in a hotel on Lombard Street. "It feels weird to hold that in your hands and then throw it back in," Hope reflected, highlighting the deeply personal nature of the materials she encounters in her work.

Hope has called the Mission District home since 1998, where she lives with her partner and fellow artist Andy Diaz in a converted carriage house that serves as an artists' compound. Their home itself embodies the principles of survival and adaptation that inspire Hope's work, featuring cabinets made from a downed oak tree and sinks crafted from Victorian-era marble they foraged from the city.

"Construction is part of the art process," Hope explained. "There used to be ancient forests here, and now we are living in their bones." Inside Hope's home studio, her wildlife-inspired creations fill every corner: peacocks fashioned from fake fingernails, wooden coyote skulls, and a series of pigeon statues wearing hand-crocheted outfits. Porcelain sculptures of starlings line the walls, while live hummingbirds circle the skylight in what was once a hayloft.

"I've ended up working with birds a lot, because birds are the animals that you see in cities the most," Hope said. "I ended up sort of becoming like a bird lady, which was irritating! But it was like, if birds can adapt, I can adapt." Her focus on urban wildlife reflects her broader artistic philosophy about adaptation and resilience in city environments.

Hope's latest body of work centers on ecosystems and the intricate ways different elements adapt and work together. Her May exhibition at Recology, titled "Body of Land, Body of Water," showcased this theme through sculptural wooden skeletons of human torsos created from broken costume jewelry, plywood scraps, and tangles of old electrical wires. The skeletal forms were deliberately chosen for their symbolic significance.

"In nature, a leaf falls and decomposes, and its nutrients are taken up by a plant that's eaten by an animal," Hope explained, "whereas in the city, garbage hits the ground and doesn't have a chance to decompose. I'm playing with the idea of speeding up that cycle and creating animals out of the garbage before it decomposes." Her use of skeletons was intentional, as she noted: "The skeleton is the part that lasts longer than the flesh, so it's almost more representational of the spirit."

As garbage trucks rumbled by on their daily routes to collect the city's discarded materials, Hope offered her perspective on urban beauty. "You don't find the same peace here as in nature," she acknowledged, "but there's beauty all the same." Through her innovative approach to recycled art and her residency at Recology, Hope continues to demonstrate how artists can find inspiration and create meaningful work from society's cast-offs, transforming trash into treasured art that speaks to themes of adaptation, survival, and urban ecology.