Art fell into the picture by chance for Niko Sanchez, a member of the 2025-26 JustArts Fellows cohort.
Biking through his old stomping grounds of San Diego, Sanchez stumbled across an array of murals in a Chicano park– and along with them, a muralist stood.
“There was this old man standing under three levels of scaffolding in front of a 30-foot tall by 500-foot long mural,” he said. “I put on my brakes and went over to go talk to him. It turns out his name was Salvador Torres. He was what they call ‘the big cheese’ of Chicano Park.”
A simple conversation turned into eight months of apprenticeship under Torres, he said, learning the ins and outs of muralism. Eventually, this led Sanchez to study the arts in higher education, which turned into years of muralism, sculpting, and eventually teaching.
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Sanchez is a second-year Ph.D. student in Applied Intercultural Arts Research at the Graduate College. He is also a Digital Design and Fabrication Specialist at the CATalyst Studio at the Main Library, where he uses 3D printing technology daily.
“In a makerspace, we generate a lot of 3D printed waste,” he said. “Me being a sculptor and a painter, I was like, ‘What am I going to do with all this 3D printed waste?’”
“That’s where the whole project started.”
His project, “PLAing with Trash: Turning 3D Printing Polylactic Acid Waste into Art,” focuses on building a campus-wide network of fabrication spaces to harvest 3D printing waste, failed prints, and prototypes and using that material as the basis for creating sculptures and sculpture workshops. In partnership with the Campus Sustainability Fund, Sanchez is bringing awareness to how the waste created through rapid prototyping can be repurposed for artistic use.
He set up collection and storage sites at CATalyst Studios, the Engineering Design Center and the Environment and Natural Resources 2 Building.
Sanchez partner with undergraduate students to design and implement sculpture workshops turning everyday scrap materials into eye-catching and interactive art pieces.
In the CATalyst Studio, several 3D printers were updated to newer versions, leaving older printers without a purpose. Through upcycling these printer scraps and old parts, Sanchez first got to work on a project for the MLK Dream Student Space, a space that serves as a resource for Black students.
“The MLK Dream Space wanted to do a ball drop, so I built a big basket and then programmed some LEDs to do a countdown for that ball drop,” he said.
Working with mentors like the JustArts Coordinator Ashley Martin-Casler allowed him to take this project one step further.
“Ashley works with teaching music and working with the entire audible sense of art, which I have not really incorporated into my work before,” he said. “She inspired me to do this sound reactive portion of this sculpture.”
Sound reactive means that the light changes intensity and color in response to the music playing.
Sanchez next upcycling project will be a community sculpture created by the community at downtown Tucson’s TENWEST Impact Festival, March 24-29. The festival aims to foster innovation and creativity for attendees and creators to experience new ideas.
“We have all the 3D printed waste sorted by color. People attending the conference will have the opportunity to add to community sculpture that we are building,” he said.
Sanchez said that he learned a lot from his JustArts experience.
“I learned about developing interdepartmental networks and guiding teams of students in data collecting, coordination, and sculpture making.”