Small Rescues Make Big Changes

Do you remember your University or High School days? Learning about ancient civilizations through the artifacts that were uncovered by the painstaking effort of archeologists?

Figurines and pottery, tools and weapons... most of these were discovered in the homes and places they were used, although occasionally small piles of refuse were found and sifted through for pot sherds and other broken implements.

I often idly wonder what some future archeologist would make of the detritus of our civilization, were she to come upon it in 10 or 20 thousand years.

What will our mountainous land fills look like to her? By then I suppose much of our waste will have degraded into something; some toxic carboniferous chemical sludge. I can imagine the crew carefully cleaning, brushing, and chipping away only to discover huge lumps of glass fused in fires created by the methane gasses released during garbage decomposition, broken lamp fixtures and bent satellite dishes, tons of ceramic tile and other construction waste...

Here on the ranch, we like to think of those future archeologists "ooh-ing" and "ahh-ing" at the unique art treasures they will find here. I can almost hear them exclaiming "This bird bath appears to be made from a mini satellite dish that has been decorated with pot sherds!" or "This sculpture seems to have been assembled from ceramic drain pipes and broken garden tools!"

Okay, maybe my imagination does run away with me at times, but it's all in fun and a little imagination is all you need to turn trash into treasure!

This is my kitchen counter and window inset. I admit I purchased a few of the brightly colored tiles to accentuate the design (I did this before I had amassed the collection of rescued tile that I have now), but even the purchased tiles were mostly bought as leftovers in garage and yard sales; leftovers that would have otherwise eventually made it into our land fills.

As you can see, mostly flat tile has been used for level surface of the counter, but up in the window insets I've thrown caution to the wind, adding bits of broken antique china. (This is a wonderful way to use those broken family heirloom pieces.) The cup handles make great fixtures upon which to hang herbs or other decorative bits. There are rescued glass marbles and "globs" included as well.

The tile for the floor in this room was rescued from local tile outlets and stores. Some of it was rescued from the dumpsters behind the shops, and the rest was obtained by simply asking. I ask the proprietor for all the tile that is going to be thrown away; end lots of this season's styles that have been discontinued, custom order mistakes, damaged or broken crates... Most of the shops are so happy to get rid of it that they even help me load it into my truck!

These yard art sculptures are ceramic or concrete drain pipes and bowling balls that are covered with broken and cut tile and ceramic dinnerware and china, bits of mirror and colored glass and even glass beads. 

The range of items you can use for the base or frame of your sculpture or yard art is practically limitless. I have an altered wooden chair in the works as well as mini satellite dish birdbaths (but I'm saving those images for a future "How-to" post, so I hope you don't mind being teased a little!)

Visit Thorne's World for a list of found and rescued items to use in your mosaic art projects and create something of sustained beauty using remnants of our throwaway society. Remember, every piece of tile or glass or metal that you reuse or upcycle into art is one less in the land fill.

© Terese Hartjoy, 2009

Junk Mail Mosaic

There are a number of ways to help reduce the amount of advertising circulars, fliers, in-mail supplements, and throw-aways that end up in the Land Fills via your mailbox. If you're absolutely sick of them all showing up in your snail mail box, by all means get active and head over to The Privacy Rights Clearing House, or Ecofuture and learn how to get off of all the lists that you possibly can.

We've done that at home in Thorne's World, but we still receive an inordinate amount of junk because our contracted mail carrier simply can't be bothered to change her routine enough to skip stuffing our box.

We compost most of the non glossy papers (after using them to line the bottoms of 6 large parrot cages), but the parrots don't like the glossy papers any more than I like the idea of my birds chewing on them, so the glossies just kept stacking up!

One frustrating day the stack fell to the floor and I noticed the array of color, the variety of type, the words and images and a light bulb went off in my head (a compact fluorescent, of course!) I thought: Collage! Mosaic! Scrapbooking! Art Journaling! Suddenly I had a use for all of my long saved magazines, and old calendars full of luscious images and colors as well!

A word of caution: If you use junk mail for scrap booking, or art journaling make sure you seal it, because it is NOT archival quality and will degrade over time and ruin your projects.

It's as simple as cutting (or tearing for interesting texture) your junk into squares or other shapes.

I separate them into little piles of similar color, or images so I can see at a glance what I have to work with. Can't you already see something waiting to be born in those tiny squares of color? Do the words and fonts you've snipped speak to you?

You can get as involved and planned out as you like, sketch your image on your base... or just dig right in laying color and shape and image down as it calls to you (my usual preferred method).

I generally use a 3:1 glue to water ratio of an eco friendly white glue to make and seal my paper collage and mosaic art.

This is a collage I made on one of about 50 plastic bathing suit displays that I rescued from a Retail store.They were tossed out and were destined for the land fill.

This can be a great crafting and eco lesson project for home schoolers and public educators as well!

Last year I discovered that I was in very good company with my recyled junk mail mosaics and collage, when I came upon the art of S. A. Schimmel. Schimmel works with business cards, old greeting cards, menus, junk mail postcards, cruise itineraries and paint. In Schimmel's own words her pieces portray “Advertising images married with advertising’s images.”

Across the Universe copyright SC Schimmel

As an artist she stands as a fine example to all of us to make beauty and art worth saving and preserving out of the "throw away" remnants of our consumer driven society.

What will you create?