Altering an assignment to paint an organic subject within a geometric background, I used Smarties and Sweet Tarts from Halloween (that my mom wanted my brothers and I to throw away) to create a candy-based paint. I used the paint for coloring tiny interlocking organic shapes within geometric sections of an abstract trash can. I crushed and mixed the candies with water, to make a few different colored pastes for painting onto numbered shapes. I’d reference pictures of numbered sections before they’d been cut, to fit the painted and coated pieces back together at different heights, raised by paper straws and hot glue. Using candy was my way to show others the beauty and potential in what’s often considered unimportant. Throwing away junk is better than ingesting it, yet using it in a creative way is a triumph. I used art to change what’s bad for the body into a visual confection, and to display irony in a beautiful garbage can made with trash.