Our trash is this artist's treasure

He has gutted the inside and cut through the aluminum siding to create a "slide-out" with thermal panes. Another wall will become a drop-down deck while the now-cramping roof will give way to a 9 1/2-foot-wide geodesic dome. Farther above will be a towering mast supporting a wind turbine that, along with solar panels, will provide power for the trailer. The insulation? It's recycled denim, scraps left over from when they make blue jeans.

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Emergency art

It will be a busy summer for Villinski and a volunteer, a man who was visiting the sculpture park and offered to help get the "off-the-grid" trailer ready for the 11-week show in New Orleans. While Villinski sees it as a commentary on the government's wastefulness, he also makes the case that just as the public needs medical workers and other emergency crews at disaster scenes, there should be a way to embed artists, who "could inspire hope or an-out-of-the-box way of getting out of this."

He also sees his trailer as a prototype, suggesting a way FEMA could salvage all those trailers destined for the scrap heap, "although it is a rather ridiculous amount of work to gut the thing and start rebuilding it."

Another thought came to Villinski as he stood outside the flimsy hull of the gutted trailer.

"I've gone through different disciplines, but there is some kind of fanatic connection between the things I'm doing. In a sense this FEMA trailer is just a really big beer can I'm transforming into something of beauty."

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paul.lieberman@latimes.com