recycle

If you are not into recycling you think the items in these photos are just junk. If you do recycle you will say, "Hey!, possibilities can be endless with imagination!"

This photo is at a fun store that has all types of things that can be used again... from the obvious such as fabric pieces and ribbons and beads and photo mat board and frames and wallpaper sample books and wood scraps...to the not so obvious kinds of things that usually get directly sent to the trash- but if you use some imagination they can become art ingredients.

My son has been in a recycling club for 2 years at school. His main job each week is to empty the big bins of paper from his assigned classrooms into the outside paper recycle hopper to be made into more new paper. They also have art days too, where they make things from recycled items. There are both girls and boys in the club so they have made many types of arts creations with unexpected items. Everything from making their own homemade paper to creating beads from junk mail to thinking up new practical creative ways to use things as is beyond their original intended purpose.

My oldest daughter is involved in making art at an art gallery. Some of their sculpture-like art pieces are created with recycled items. The gallery, which is open to the public and sells art made only by young adults with disabilities, is in a beautiful historical building.  I am crazy for old buildings with worn down not so level wooden floors and high tin ceilings and exposed brick walls and vintage window glass that is wavy and has tiny bubbles in it. During our first tour, I walked around with a constant smile on my face. The attributes of the old building structure, wonderful set up of the gallery displays and of course the art itself was inriguing. My daughter also could not stop smiling.The studio sells items, both 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional (priced from just a few dollars all the way up to $800) to business owners for their offices, private owners for their homes, and it is a perfect place to shop for gift giving. I knew this was the place for my daughter to blossom, and so took the long, red-tape paperwork steps to have her apply to be one of their artists, since they had an opening for a new artist to be added. (I'm certain if you have a special needs child/young adult then you know what this all means at every step of their life! Paperwork, waiting, denial, approval, more paperwork...) My daughter has had many of her drawings, paintings, and photography matted and framed to be offered for sale in the gallery. I see the pride she has, and I am proud of her every day.

All of my children are artists. I am an artist. We each have our own interests and specialties.
Art is everywhere you go every day. Clothing, signs, menus, book jackets, movie posters, home furnishings, landscaping, architecture, and on and on in so many directions. So many forms of art. Even nature is art.

Back to the story attached to this photo-- The idea of the creative "trash curtain" is an interesting concept, and I would do it with some variations. For example, I think it would be fun to customize it with a monochromatic color approach and do all bottle lids (caps), or all the same shapes (of whatever) on a string. Hang several as outdoor art to catch the wind near at patio or backyard playhouse. It is colorful and waterproof and I even thought it could include some jingly things to be kind of a wind chime when blown in the breezes.