Daniel Lara's Recycled Footballs

Daniel Lara is a multimedia designer and artist. He lives in Los Angeles, and is one of the best players I've had the pleasure of meeting while playing pick-up soccer.  His website charts his incredible range as a visual thinker.

A few months ago, Daniel told me he was thinking about making work using soccer balls. Now he gives kids he sees playing soccer new balls for their old ones. He unravels the old balls, and stitches their skins and bladders together to make objects like the one he is holding here. 

It's a gorgeous object, as you can see - the strange patchwork makes me wonder where these balls came from, it has me looking for traces of the groups they held together in forms of play. Now those people are playing with things Daniel gave them, too - he's left a trace of this project with them.

This isn't the first work to re-purpose soccer-objects, but it's surely one of the best.