In the summer of 1994, after witnessing a terrifying close call involving his five-year-old son and some carelessly-discarded shards of glass in a public park near their home, Mark Nelson decided to do something to bring attention to and alleviate the chronic issue of dangerous glass debris lurking in public spaces where children and families gather to relax and play. That next year, at Art League Houston, he exhibited a sculptural work called “110 Lbs. of Park Glass”—an old, galvanized metal wash basin filled to the brim with clean, clear, amber, green and blue shards of broken glass bottles he had painstakingly collected from City parks over the course of a year. For his NYU Fellowship, Nelson established and ran a public art project called GLASSfreeGROUNDS—creating 36 workshops held at City parks where children and adult participants gathered one ton of broken glass and painted and decorated a thousand GfG Art Buckets. In 2000, 1500 pounds of that glass were melted down at a marble making factory in Reno, Ohio, producing 180,000 cobalt blue “MARBLEOUS” marbles. His True North installation “MARBLEOUS GfG BUCKET CORRAL” is composed of 80 of these GfG Art Buckets inviting us to study each bucket’s unique artwork and reflect upon the dangerous issue of glass usage and litter in public spaces. Nelson earned his BFA at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, and MFA at University of Houston. A multi-media artist, some of his exhibitions include Brownsville Museum of Fine Arts, “Extremely Short Film Festival,” Aurora Picture Show, Houston (Best of Show), G Spot Contemporary Art Space, Houston, Mother Dog Studios, Houston, Project Row Houses, Houston, The Art Car Museum, Houston, “The Big Show,” Lawndale Art Center, Houston, and received the Houston Community Activist, Environmental Excellence Award, from Citizen’s Environment Coalition, Houston. Presently, he maintains his art practice and lives in the Heights with his wife, Maria.