PARIS – Trash can be art.

The proof is in the Bates Museum of Art in Lewiston and the classrooms of Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris. There, graphics art design teacher and artist Virginia Valdes and her students have turned recycled trash into art.

From Valdes’ commitment to exposing her students to the possibilities of using recyclables as art sprung an idea for a trash recycling art class at the high school last year.

With the help of employees at the Oxford County recycling center and employees at the Buckfield transfer stations, she and her students began collecting everything from plastic bags to children’s toys, bringing them back into the classroom to reuse while studying the causes and effects of trash on the environment.

At the same time, Valdes, who has exhibited at venues such as P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, both in New York City, and the Stuttgart Film Winter Festival in Germany, began to formulate an idea for an exhibit.

Valdes said she applied for a grant to create her installation from the LEF Foundation in Boston. The private foundation supports creation and presentation of contemporary works in the visual arts, performing art, new media and other forms of art.

“I got the grant, which is fabulous,” she said. The Bates Museum of Art then commissioned her to create an installation.

The result was her exhibit, ‘Wasteland in the Green Horizons,’ at the Bates College Museum of Art, which runs through Dec. 9. The exhibition brings together internationally renowned artists such as Valdes who have created what Bates officials bill as an “organic exhibition and educational outreach program designed to examine the politics and nature of greenness and sustainability.”

Anthony Shostak, the museum’s director of education, said the show has received rave reviews from notable art publications. “Attendance is well above normal,” he said.

‘Wasteland’ addresses the issues of disposable society and culture, the objectification of nature and people’s propensity to live a life full of illusion.

“It’s loaded with a bunch of stuff,” said Valdes, whose husband and longtime collaborator and musician Laurent Brondel provided the exhibit’s music.

Valdes said the development of her installation at a time when her students were involved in the recycling class allowed her to involve them in her artistic efforts.

“They were so into recycling art I had them as my art assistants in my installation,” said Valdes. The students helped cut out hundreds of letters from food packages, link together a thousands CDs which made up a wall in the exhibit and other things. “They were also learning about installation art and how how much time and effort it takes,” she said.

The students were Brittany Barrett, Elizabeth Baumhoff, Nicholas DiConzo, Kelley Eland and Lianne Lewin. Also involved as art assistants were Amy Pike, Victoria Rogers, Katherine Warren and Daecia Dow.

A few of the items, such as DiConzo’s mask and Baumhoff’s half-world of foil that the students made in their recycling class ended up in Valdes trash pile in her exhibit.

“I recycled them by putting it in my trash pile,” said Valdes of her efforts to reuse trash.

The recycling efforts of both the teacher and students have not ended. Sessions has asked Valdes and her students to paint designs on some recycling bins, and the students say their recycling efforts are still ongoing.

“I became more aware that our efforts at recycling need to be more than they are,” said Daecia Dow of West Paris who created a purse from Wal-Mart plastic bags. “It really helped make me more environmentally aware. It made me realize you can make something out of just about anything and you shouldn’t throw anything away.”

Dow, who doesn’t buy plastic bottles or use microwave ovens anymore, is more committed to recycling than ever. “I get on people’s cases,” she chuckles.