Trash to treasure
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Carolyn Shapiro of East Montpelier used red, clear and blue newspaper bags to make this dress, modeled by her daughter. Courtesy of Carolyn Shapiro |
Toolbox
BY STEPHANIE M. PETERS
Staff Writer - Published: November 23, 2008
When the red, blue and clear plastic delivery bags from the three newspapers Carolyn Shapiro subscribes to began to pile up, she decided to make a statement. An artistic statement.
A freelance art educator, Shapiro at first thought the pliable plastic would lend itself well to woven doormats. She created some rough plywood looms and had her elementary school students in Northfield get to work.
"When I got going on that I thought, 'Oh, this is too exciting to be just a floor mat,'" Shapiro says.
It looked instead like a bodice, and with a few more plastic bags and some packing tape to form a long skirt, Shapiro created a dress that, given the patriotic colors and the season, she jokingly named her inauguration dress.
With it, she's also making an environmental statement: In a letter to the editor describing the dress, she made a pitch for eliminating the bags.
This wasn't the first time Shapiro has used what others might consider trash to create art. A few rooms in her East Montpelier home sport curtains made of bubble wrap, and she's built small movable sculptures out of what she describes as found materials from yard sales and other sources.
And she's not alone. The practice of turning trash, recyclables and found objects into art, clothing and household items is drawing attention and new fans as the concept of "green" living gains momentum.
A seller of donated industrial surplus, the ReStore — which during its 20-year existence in Montpelier was popular with artists looking for materials — is expanding and relocating to Barre. It's also partnering with ReCycle North in Burlington, a thrift store, to extend its art supply services there.
And the Sustainable Rutland committee, an initiative aimed at raising awareness for green initiatives, is planning to spon-sor a competition next spring encouraging artists to produce pieces from trash.
The group's organizers hope the project might even include an artist residency at the transfer station, as has been done in San Francisco.
Rachael Rice, program manager for ReCycle North and the ReStore, says she's noticed the effect the green movement has had on business and art. She taught art for eight years (and says she's sort of a trash artist herself), but left education to join the expanding company within the last year.
While "the business we're in is challenging, the fact is we stand to be able to serve the community in a greater way. It takes art out of the museum, where people might tend to think of it as art with a capital 'A' and makes it more accessible," she says.
The inventory at the ReStore is an odd, continually changing assortment, recently including a large shipment of pingpong balls, stained glass, tile, tubes for lip balm, colorful photo lenses, wood scraps, bubble wrap, lamp bases, zippers and packing peanuts.
For her own art, Rice is researching how to create a lamp out of pingpong balls.
The ReStore is closed as it undergoes the transition to its new facility and moves some supply to Burlington, but the staff hopes to open by Dec. 1 at the new location on Granite Street in Barre, in a 13,000-square-foot former granite shed.
"So many people are calling and saying, 'I use this stuff every holiday season,'" Rice says.
A number of artists in Montpelier specialize in this creative field, including Meg Hammond, a co-owner of the Langdon Street Café. She has become known for an annual "Trashion Show" and gets many of the materials for her clothing from the packaging in which the café's goods come, including coffee and bread bags.
"In order for me to deal with that kind of waste product, rather than take it home, I make these dresses out of them," Hammond says.
It takes her about a month to produce one dress, and each spring she tours her pieces as a fashion show in the hope that her art will catch not only viewers' eyes but also their consciences.
"People have to see the byproducts of ourselves in something that's everyday, and hopefully this gets them to think about what we're all producing together," she says. "On the other side, if we can remain as a human mind creative and come up with practical solutions – clothing out of these products isn't practical at all, but it helps us to expand our mind on what is practical."
Stacie Mincher, a Middlebury artist, has become known for a very specific medium that is enjoying popularity at craft shows and farmers markets throughout Vermont: deconstructed zippers.
About three years ago she began cutting zipper teeth off their fabric tape backing and gluing them to wood backgrounds. Eventually those backgrounds became the bases for pins, earrings, hair clips, boxes and clocks.
Although the Castleton State College graduate also dabbles in bottle caps, corks, beads, old records and bins of odds and ends she's collected over the years, Mincher found herself with a signature item. Recently she was accepted into the Vermont Hand Crafters organization.
"One man's trash is another man's treasure," Mincher says. "I've always believed that and always liked to go yard sale-ing. Sometimes you just see something and think, 'What can I do with this? This is really cool.'"
Contact Stephanie M. Peters at stephanie.peters@rutlandherald.com.