What Do I and American Craft Have in Common?

Taking a break from poop scooping in the pouring rain, I stopped in at Barnes and Noble to read art magazines. The latest issue of American Craft has an interesting article on toilets designed by Virginia Gardiner, who uses horse manure. http://www.americancraftmag.org/article.php?id=7286

The title of the article In Praise of Poop is misleading because it is not poop that Gardiner utilizes, it is horse manure. The difference is important to understand because human feces, much like dog feces, contains bacteria that is harmful to both the environment and to other humans and dogs. As carnivores, we produce a different quality of excrement than horses, who live primarily on hay, carrots, apples and a few Milky Ways on occasion.

As an artist I understand Gardiner's interest in utilizing one medium to create another medium that may have both a social and environmental statement. More interesting is her desire to create waterless toilets that can be used in underprivileged countries as a solution. See her link on that problem: http://excrextra.com/

If there were a way we could develop a cost effective and sanitary manner to reuse dog feces, we (the team who creates the solution) would be very wealthy. Anyone out there with ideas, let me know. I have been studying waste management in pursuit of a realistic and safe solution, but not as art. I think I will stick with pastels.