Saturday 28th of March marks this year’s Earth Hour. The WWF are aiming to get 1 billion people to switch off their lights between 8:30-9:30pm local time in order to raise awareness about global warming. This, combined with the constant reminders that we’re entering into tough economic times got me thinking about whether there’s a conflict between creating art and living a more sustainable or eco friendly lifestyle. It seems all we need is a good dose of imagination …
Japanese artist Yuken Teruya makes beautiful works of art out of toilet rolls, newspapers and pizza boxes.
Jean Shin created “Sound Wave” out of melted vinyl. Records were melted and sculpted to form a cascading wave, dotted with bursts of colorful labels. The resulting structure speaks to the inevitable waves of technology that render each successive generation of recordable media obsolete.
Artist Paul Villinski makes these beautiful butterflies from beercans he finds on the street in New York. Who leaves these crushed beer cans – forlorn evidence scattered in the streets of the city? I take these “dead soldiers” – every one of them once raised to someone’s lips – and breathe new life into them, changing them into images that suggest the possibility of change itself.
Glenfiddich whisky recently commissioned the London-based design consultancy Johnson Banks to interpret the length of time it takes for Glenfiddich single malt whisky to mature in barrels. The shortest length of time whisky is in a barrel is 12 years, the longest is 30. The letters cut from the barrel spell ‘for 21 years we take a share’.
Creating your own eco friendly art
What could you come up with if you only had the materials in your recycling bin to work with or the bits and pieces lying around the house or the shed? Could you produce something beautiful with only a toilet roll? Sounds like a challenge in the making. So for those who’d like a to get your teeth into a project, we’d love to see what masterpieces you can come up with using household objects or recycled materials. We’ll start up a thread in the General Discussions forum and you can post your results there. If your works can’t be posted as art then tell us about them in a journal.
Here are some ideas to get the creative juices flowing:
- Recycle Junk Mail into Art
- Make an awesomely amazing pinhole camera
- Build yourself a giant robot or a paper creature
- Make some cut paper art
So are you feeling inspired?
H M Bascom
Beauty from the bin. :-)
community:
Indeed. I’ve got a pile of weekend papers I’m now a little reluctant to put in the recycling. There might be a project in there!
onetonshadow
What a waste of quality vinyl.
Unless they were Boney M records.
community:
I have it on good authority they were all Boney M records.
red addiction
WOW, they are all so good. The top one is my favorite. What an awesome idea!!!! And you betcha, I will participate. I even made an Earth Day shirt to represent that day.
community:
Great! I can’t wait to see what people come up with.
janpiller
Those are beautiful pieces!
community:
The toilet roll one really got me. So simple yet beautiful!
Janis Zroback
Thank you for this…the art you’ve shown here is wonderful…I will be turning the lights out tomorrow…
I do my part in the studio too…besides the obvious ways to recylce and reuse, I also pulp my watercolour paintings (the ones I have not sold or don’t want to keep) and cast new sheets of paper out of them and create new paintings…sometimes I use fabric dyes or food colouring to colour the pulp and make beautiful free form bowls…
community:
meant to use the reply thingy! (see below) :)
community
I also pulp my watercolour paintings (the ones I have not sold or don’t want to keep) and cast new sheets of paper out of them and create new paintings
Janis, that would make a fantastic journal/tutorial Next time you should take some snaps!
Janis Zroback
I will do that…I only just found out about you, but you are on my watchlist now…
Karin Taylor
Omi this is so inspiring!!!!
I think I have an idea :)
Thank you.. Great initiative, something for us all to get involved with
I love the idea :)
Heather Rivet...
wow outstanding works ..inspiring
adgray
Here are 3 I prepared earlier from recycled Baltic Pine that were packing crates for glass rods shipped from Russia & previously destined for the burner!
I have shellacked and bees waxed for a French Polish finish [with a touch of stain]
“Whatnot”, “Foot locker box”, “Apprentice Chest of Drawers” [yes the pillars were turned from recycled wood too!]
adgray
Oh and not that I want to be a glutton / show off whatever but hey I am a scout and we are taught to always recycle as best we can so off the side of the road during a hard rubbish time I found some old drawer bottoms and some house paints and I painted these:
“Bush Trail Ride” and “Creative Mind”
I have no money to purchase materials hence why I have not done more since
and why I focus on my writing!
Thank you for letting me do show and tell :O)
Chookas! X♥X
linaji
Inspired work and to see our fellow bubblers just as creative as can be!!
Natalie Tyler
Wow Adgray – that chest of drawers in particular is amazing. Did you actually make the pillars or were they reclaimed?
chasingsooz
The theme for this work was My Dark Future .. a time when machine rises out of the urban decay to become (wo)man.
Most of the materials were recycled and found on the side of the road during council clean up when everyone tosses their junk out. I took the guts out of laptops, scanners, mobile phones, dvd players, calculators .. anything I could get my hands on. The wings are wheels from two different bicycles. I had told my daughter and hubby to keep an eye out and they proudly found them on their way home from school. The skirt is flywire (front door screen), the boobs have bath plugs, ipod bits, headphone parts and her whoo hoo features a sink drainer (speaker) with a keypad from a mobile phone. For the torso itself, I used a mannequin that I picked up at reverse garbage and used as a mold for plaster. It is painted with the dregs of leftover paint from previous projects.
chasingsooz
Oooh sorry about the double post of the image.
Kathleen Cameron
you know… this is right up the alley for the art action union
:-)
heidiypi1
Wow amazing stuff