Mark Nelson Glass Free Grounds

Glass Free Grounds was a public art project started by artist Mark Nelson in 1998.Since 2001, it has been established as a non-profit organization. GFG works with children and adults in an effort to rid public parks of broken glass litter by conducting workshops year round that consist of two basic activities: first, each GFG participant paints and decorates a 10 quart metal bucket for the GFG Art Bucket Collection. For the second activity, GFG participants go out walking through the park gathering the dangerous shards of glass. They are taught to use a small gardening tool to dislodge glass buried in earth and leather gloves to handle the broken pieces; the objects are then picked up off the ground and placed in the Art Bucket

These Marbleous Marbles were once broken glass litter in Houston Public Parks. GlassFree Grounds & 759 children and adults gathered 1500 pounds of the dangerous debris from 18 parks. On 10.16.00, all of the glass shards were turned into the World’s 1st Marbles made from broken beer, wine, whiskey, &gin bottles gathered from Public Parks.

Mark Nelson was born in Salina, Kansas in 1957. He received his B.F.A. from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn,New York in 1992 and his M.F.A. from the University of Houston in 1998. In collaboration with Glass FreeGrounds, Nelson’s public projects have been featured at Project Row Houses (2000); Wortham Theater District (2001); and Buffalo Bayou Art Park (2002). Nelson currently lives and works in Houston