Artists go green with recycled items

Artists go green with recycled items
Tags: Interior Design, Sustainable Products
December 27, 2010 - Christine Brun

One of the most exciting aspects of recycling is transforming scrap and litter into some type of art form. An art anthology says volumes about what you are on the inside and what values you hold close, so for people concerned about the constant production of trash, there is good news. Many artists today create new works of art from discarded materials. They turn items like old carpets, found objects and plastic bags into works of beauty.

Bryan Keith does business as Pluto Krazo Designs and is dedicated to artistic creations from 99.9 percent recycled materials. He creates room dividers, luminaries, masks and musical instruments. Recycled tire inner tubes are also used for rugs, jewelry, hand bags and gothic attire.

Kozo Studio and Gallery in Ontario, Canada is the home of fiber artist and papermaker Tunde Toth. Her work utilizes environmentally friendly materials without using any animal products and limiting the use of chemical additives, involving a transformation of old papers into a new creative expression.

Anna Cianfarani collects rubber from a local nonprofit bicycle recycling source in Manhattan and her business, Gaelyn & Cianfarani, produces rubber fashion designs favored by stage performers and stylists.

The weaving in the photo is by fiber artist Julie Kornblum, who creates weavings and basketry following ancient techniques. Julie uses discarded materials. “My materials are cast off, surplus, or waste: copper wire from the recycle yard; audio cassette tapes that even the thrift store wanted to throw away. Yarns and materials of unknown purpose somehow find their way to my studio, and I collect plastic bags and bits of packaging that are trashed after be3ing used once. These materials could not have existed either physically or conceptually until the modern age. Physically, they are by-products of industrialization. Conceptually, the notions of disposability, one-time-use, surplus, and waste are modern inventions.”

In 2003, Julie was in her studio working on a piece and heard a story on the radio about the discovery of the notorious North Pacific Garbage Patch by the Ocean Research Vessel Algita, captained by Charles Moore. Since that time her work is made from recycled materials. She knits and crochets with plastic bags. She hopes that her work will raise awareness about how much plastic is thrown away. “In the past hundred years plastics have facilitated marvelous advancements in medicine, food storage, communications, etc; and have become a worldwide waste and disposal problem. My work is a combination of the immediate and the ancient. I like to take a new look at old traditions by applying post-modern materials to the ancient processes of basketry and weaving. As a weaver and basket maker, I feel part of a continuation of a thousand generations of artists and weavers from around the world. As a person in the 21st Century, I am concerned with what we throw away.”