Abby Quillen

Freelance Content Marketing Writer and Editor

In Praise of Trashy Art

By

Glass Eyes, Recycled Art Show, Credit: Pictoscribe

We’re big on recycling in my house. We dutifully separate our glass and recyclables and drag our bins out to the curb each week. We take outdated electronics and computers to the local computer recycling center. We turn old clothes into rags, and my son draws on the back side of scrap paper. But I think we can get a lot more creative when it comes to reuse. More and more artists are turning old junk into paintings, jewelry, sculptures, furniture, and even buildings.

Traditional art supplies contain toxins that can be dangerous to our health and to ecosystems. What better way to make creating art more green than to use something Americans create 230 million tons of every year: garbage?

Are you not convinced that garbage can be beautiful? Check out these galleries of recycled art:

And my favorite:

I’ve seen lots of nifty recycled art at our local craft market: night lights made out of cat food cans, sculptures made out of computer chips, and handbags made from old tires. And a search for recycled goods on Etsy turns up 147,500 results. It makes me wonder, what might I turn an old milk carton into? A birdhouse, a lantern, a dish-washing robot?

Do you create or admire recycled art? Tell me about it.

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Comments

  2. Recently I’ve gotten into re-decorating and/or antiquing bad, boring, broken and banged up furniture. I think that’s not so much recycling or even reusing, but UPcycling, because the end result ends up being much better than the original. I put one of the works up on etsy here. It’s a boring gray IKEA table, living a second life.

    There is so much furniture out there already, I figure why add to the build-up? Instead, you can buy cheap, explore your creativity, and come out with unique, stylish creations of your own…(at least in theory 🙂 )

  3. It’s really cool that you brought this up in a post. I love the idea of making art out of things that are thrown away. So far I have been into making plarn “plastic bag yarn”. I also re-use jars for holding things like knitting needles, pens, etc.

    When I walk through the electrical section at a home improvement store, I can’t help but start putting together what I look at, all the wires and knobs and switches. I’ve always wanted to just raid that place and make huge pieces of art out of the supplies there.

  4. Hi Abby,

    Are you familiar with the Materials Exchange Center for Community Arts in Eugene by the train station? http://www.materials-exchange.org/

    They take used/recycled “junk” and organize it in one place so that artists can come find treasures for craft/art projects. They have art samples for inspiration as well as workshops.

    I recently took the boys there for a “junk hunt” to build up their junk boxes (great for creativity and exploring, and also sorting/similarity games like “put all the ones with a metal part in the box,” etc). But I find fabric scraps for projects, yarn, old ties, photos, frames, and more. It is an amazing local resource.

    • Hi Marianne! Yes, I’ve heard of Mecca. But, I’ve yet to visit. It sounds amazing! I can’t wait to check it out. Thanks!

  5. there’s so much wonderful recycled art around, it’s such a creative response to a very human problem. I use almost only recycled materials in my crafts – mostly I make greetings cards and small fabric items like purses. I do it all on a small scale, using mostly my own left over fabric scraps, odd found items and old magazines.