The piano was dead, burned to a crisp.

And Francisco Vargas gave it new life.

In his "Red Baby Grand," one of the most unusual and striking works in the new show "Nothing Wasted" at Arte Americas, you get a sense of the power of reclamation. Few objects in life, after all, completely disintegrate or vanish when their original purpose is spent. A broken washing machine has to go somewhere. A decrepit windshield wiper doesn't mark its demise by whisking itself off to another dimension.

If you're a store owner and use small mannequins to display baby clothes, there will come a time when those plastic infants, while never growing up, will call it quits. Or at least the store will. And what do you do with them? (More on that in a moment.)

For Vargas, who reclaimed the burned Baldwin piano from a house fire, he reimagined the whole purpose and spatial orientation of the instrument. After scooping out its innards, he turned the shell of the piano, now painted a rich mahogany, into a frame for shelves, then hung it against a wall. He was able to salvage the keyboard, which is now oriented vertically, a tower of keys rising from high notes to low toward the ceiling.

Detached below, a table resting on the piano's legs includes the original pedals at bottom.

It's wonderful.

The innovative "Nothing Wasted" show, featuring work from local artists, is one of three exhibitions at Arte that make up the cultural center's installment of The Green Art Project, an initiative made possible by a grant from the Central Valley Foundation's McClatchy Fresno Art Endowment.

The three shows continue a series of collaborations focusing on the theme of environmental sustainability between the endowment and Fresno State's Center for Creativity and the Arts, Arte Americas and the Fresno Art Museum. The McClatchy endowment awarded a $100,000 grant last year for the series, which also included a guest residency by Patrick Dougherty, who made the prominent environmental sculpture "The Learning Curve" at Fresno State last fall.

"Nothing Wasted" is joined by two touring exhibitions at Arte. "Ignite: The Art of Sustainability" is an examination of regional ecological issues by prominent contemporary California artists. And "Valley of Shadows and Dreams" with photographs and text by Ken and Melanie White, consists of 31 black-and-white photographs exploring the Central Valley through an intimate look at the lives of farmworkers.

Of particular interest in the "Ignite" exhibit are two works by Ann Savageau, a University of California, Davis, professor. Her "Central Valley Ghost Stories" consists of a three-dimensional viewing box, 4-feet square by 4-inches deep, in which she's positioned images of animals that used to roam this region in large numbers but are now either extinct or endangered.

VIDEO: Watch an interview with artist Ann Savageau.

She achieved an interesting effect by burning the images into polyester silkscreen fabric, then placing that fabric at the front of the box between sheets of Plexiglas. With duplicate images pinned at the back of the box, she achieves a sort of eerie sensibility.

It's certainly common knowledge that wondrous creatures -- giant sloths, enormous sharks, fierce sabre-tooth tigers -- roamed and swam these parts millions of years ago. But Savageau's work, which also focuses on more recent losses, such as the grizzly bear that still adorns our flag, is a reminder of how much this land has changed over the years.

Other works in the "Ignite" show focus on such topics as air pollution, water issues and environmental restoration.

The local artists in the "Nothing Wasted" show have a little more fun with the theme, from Edward Gillum's intriguing mixed-media piece "Good-Bye Garbage," a series of corrugated-style metal discs with applied photographs that change perspective depending on the viewing angle, to Adam Longatti's visceral Adam Longatti, a pterodactyl-like creature made from metal found along Fresno railroad tracks and glazed with sand from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

As for those mannequins: Geoffrey Spach has a grand time turning them into caustic statement about pollution in his "Modern Youth Unfiltered/Unguided," which features three "babies" wearing gas masks and "breathing" via a tube connected to a garbage can.

And then there's the red piano on the wall. If you look closely, the artist changed the "Baldwin" label to "Vargas," and he plans to install it in his home. Now that's sustainability.

Art exhibition

The Green Art Project, through April 7, Arte Americas, 1630 Van Ness. arteamericas.org, (559) 266-2623. Free.