David Roth Champions iPad Jazz, Creative Reuse and Zerolandfills

David Roth, may look like a mild-mannered Pittsburgh architect, but this guy has more sides to him than a rubix cube and every one of them is super! He creates several kinds of musical instruments and has been experimenting with jazz, using his i-Pad as the foundation of his work. Catch a sample of his music (Dark Chocolate) in the right  hand column of this blog. And if his business and music aren't enough to keep him busy, David is also deeply committed to his environmental work, currently spearheading Pittsburgh's ZEROLANDFILL Project which began a roll-out from the Twin Cities to encompass 20 new markets in 2011. Zerolandfill connects architects and designers to art educators and people like Faye Miller of Creative Reuse to "upcycle" sample materials from the often massive libraries of interior designers and architects; materials which all to often become trash. Roth is reaching out to his peers through Zerolandfill on Facebook and his blog Zerolandfill Pittsburgh to curb this trend. He would like to see these items "upcycled."

"Upcycling is different from recycling," says Roth, "in that the objects find a higher purpose than they originally had." For two weeks this April around Earth Day, Roth and his collaborators will be hosting a collection at Guardian Storage in the strip, and redistributing the materials to other creative types locally. Schools in particular may find this helpful as art budgets are usually the first cut. "People are happy to do good things, once they know how," said Roth.

You'll find both David Roth live, in performance and Creative Reuse working on an outdoor community art project at our festival in April.