My friend Ron Shelton recently asked if I’d be interested in writing a short piece about his work, Yellow Waterfall, installed in the historic cistern in Veere, Netherlands, during the yearly Art Route, Kunstroute Veere. I haven’t seen the installation in person—only through photographs—but I’ve been thinking about it ever since he sent the image.
Ron and I have known each other for at least six years. He’s a founder of HAF (High Art Fridays), a vibrant online space and international network that brings together artists, many of whom work with recycled materials. His passion for transforming plastic waste into art is more than an aesthetic project—it’s an act of environmental resolve. He has traveled widely, encouraging others to repurpose what has already been discarded, and he has designed educational programs for both children and adults that focus on reuse, sustainability, and creativity.
What’s especially interesting about the placement of Yellow Waterfall is that it marks the fourth water-related exhibition installed in Veere’s historic cistern. Built in 1551, the cistern once served Scottish merchants who washed their wool with its water. At that time, Veere was the primary port for Scottish wool.
This layering of artworks, focused on water, deepens the dialogue between the site’s history and Ron’s contemporary interpretation. The cistern, once a vital source of life-giving water, now hosts a cascade not of liquid but of discarded plastic, provoking us to reconsider our relationship to both water and waste.
We received very positive reactions from the public regarding the Art Route and Ron’s installation in the Cistern. We hope to continue this tradition. We will discuss the future of the Art Route in the Cistern with the Council to ensure its continued use; we want to keep using it to showcase art with a ‘water theme’. Marijke Leertouwer, curator, Veere Netherlands
In Yellow Waterfall, an intertwined mass of yellow polyethylene shavings cascades from the ceiling of a centuries-old stone well. The contrast between old and new, organic and synthetic, silence and noise, is electric. The plastic—something we usually associate with pollution or excess—becomes joyful, even majestic. It spills down into the circular basin like water might have once done, but instead of a life-giving liquid, we get a torrent of what the modern world discards.
The piece is beautiful, but it’s not benign. There’s humor and play in its scale and color, but also something unsettling: this is not nature returning, but our habits rendered unignorable. Ron doesn’t just hang plastic; he lets it overflow, reclaim, and disturb.
I admire how his work doesn’t separate art from activism. In Veere, he’s taken a site of former use and turned it into a confrontation with present waste and future consequences. At the same time, the piece feels alive—like it could grow, or unravel, or take off on its own. It’s not static; it’s in motion.
Like much of Ron’s work, Yellow Waterfall asks us to look again at what we throw away, what we overlook, and what might still be possible.
Carol Heft is a New York City-based artist and educator. She is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, and her work has been exhibited internationally. She teaches Drawing, Painting, and Art History at several colleges in New York and Pennsylvania, and is represented by the Blue Mountain Gallery in New York City.
