Art made from seaweed and pawpaw bark does not usually sit above people's mantelpieces.

Kendra Ezekiel's concept of recyclable art does not always mesh with the mainstream idea of art as a saleable commodity, peddled at Harbour Nights or in the air-conditioned interiors of galleries, but Kendra has a patient faith in art as a public commodity with a social function.

"Much of my art can be recycled,'' she says. "It is a response to a materialistic society.'' Kendra considers everything carefully before speaking. She speaks slowly, weighs words. It is easy to imagine her as a solitary beachcomber, searching the shoreline for material for sculptures she creates out of everything from seaweed and frayed ship's rope to paper made from palm leaves and onion skins.

"I was always encouraged creatively in school and family life to continue with art and I had a blind faith in my creativity,'' she says.

"I never actually considered the financial limitations of such a career until leaving college. It sort of makes you face the question of your motivations for being creative. You question whether it is worth it, whether the pleasure outweighs all of the other economic downsides.

"You have to be very creative in how to survive financially as well as being an artist. Sometimes we'll do things that may interfere with your main interest, and I've done this.

"I waitressed for a year after college to make some quick money to pay bills and not to have to think about art for a while, to regroup and acclimatise myself.'' Kendra has also worked with children in government after-school arts and crafts programmes, made costumes, created set designs and exhibition designs on a freelance basis, and is now illustrating a book for Bermudian poet Andre Simons.

"Once people know you are the least bit creative they'll approach you to do anything,'' she says.

Now 29 years old, Kendra returned to Bermuda after graduating from the Exeter College of Art and Design and since 1994 she has been affiliated with the Arts Centre at Dockyard. About six years ago, Wedco granted permission to artists to use an abandoned warehouse at Dockyard as a studio, and now Kendra shares the space with a handful of other artists.

There is a rickety flight of wooden stairs leading up the outside of the building to the top floor of the studio. Kendra lifts a heavy wooden door warped with salt and humidity, which falls into a massive storehouse room.

Limestone two feet thick traps the heat of the day and it smells of dust and stone.

Kendra's search for something different "Art has become thought of as individualistic self-expression, almost to the point of being narcissistic,'' Kendra says. "I work on a different level. I work under the premise that art holds a social function.'' Kendra says she didn't think about selling when she made her last work, sculptures for the Flotsam and Jetsam exhibition.

"Selling never came into the thought process,'' she says. "The pieces were a reflection of cultural and environmental issues.

"They were responses to debris that I had come across combing the beaches. I wanted to illustrate the amount of pollution on our beaches and how we hastily overlook our responsibilities to our environment.'' Kendra wanders over to a mat on the floor spread with raw cotton, palm fibres, banana stalks and Spanish bayonets, all used to make a grainy, fibrous paper.

Some of the paper gets made into textured wall hangings, window treatments or collages. Many later get recycled into new art forms.

"The fact that I use paper was a conscious decision because we live in a very materialistic Island and there is so much clutter already here that I wanted to be able to recycle something if I didn't like it when I finished,'' Kendra says.

"I'm very much a beachcomber,'' she says, motioning to piles of driftwood, wire and sea-smoothed glass. "I like to recycle found objects.

"I think the public's perception of art needs to expand further beyond painting. I'm not saying that painting is not important, but there are other ways to be creative. Art should be a part of our daily lives. Right now I'm focussing on making objects that you can utilise in your home, like lamps.'' She picks up a piece of paper she has made, flecked red with onion skins, and lets it fall back to the floor.

"There's a big gap between creating art and getting it to the public and also selling it,'' she says.

"If a gallery is seen as simply a shop of expensive goods, then those who cannot afford them aren't likely to waste their time going in there.'' She quickly smiles. "Having said that, I also rely on the gallery system to pay my wage,'' she says, referring to her employment at the Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard and the Bermuda National Gallery.

She continues: "The galleries are limited in who they attract just to enter the space, even, because of the general public's conception of art as being an elitist luxury.

"I don't think artists would be able to survive just on gallery sales alone.

There needs to be more of an integration of art into the community, in public spaces.'' Kendra would like see a more public art -- art displayed in public places, temporarily or permanently, in Bermuda's future.

"I would love artists to be more involved in the design of public spaces, such as landscape gardens, playgrounds, public furniture, benches, murals, walkways -- anywhere where there's a means for visual or tactile stimulation,'' she says.

"I think that we need to be more creative in reaching a wider audience and I think that the whole community needs to realise the rewards of art as a cultural product. I'm not just simply talking about things that tourists go home with, but also things that stay here and inspire positive cultural identity.

"I'll give you an example of that, which goes back to my interest in paper as a medium. It starts with a kite. Good Friday for me is one of the most important rituals that a broad sector of Bermudians all participate in. The idea that we all, everyone, has a go at being creative -- picking their colours, figuring out their designs -- all for just one day. You're lucky if the kite lasts for any longer than that. The fact that we all participate breaks down class barriers. We all return to being children, to enjoy the simplicity of things.

"The National Gallery put on a show of African art in 1993 titled Secrecy. It was their first international show, and it appealed to a wide sector of the community. It showed art in the context of ritual, culture, religious beliefs -- things that I believe are important and things Bermuda needs to go back to.

"Art should be a part of daily life.'' Turquoise Waters?: A paper hull brims with debris washed up on Bermuda's shores in Kendra's sculpture, `Turquoise Waters', now on display at the Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard.