Making Art from Trash

By Anne Haclyffe

Recycling and upcycling aren't just nice to do - they're essential if we're going to save the planet.

 

And even better, you can use recycled materials to create art that you can sell at a profit. This book takes you through different ways to use recycled materials, and the different types of material you can use. It starts with simple projects and ends by suggesting ways that recycled art can create meaning, whether to address ecological questions, or to talk about memories and impermanence. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Practical Press
• Release date: Nov 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201849658

Anne Haclyffe

Anne Haclyffe lives in France and runs a small business restoring old furniture and helping clients decorate their homes in both older and contemporary styles. She's also a keen baker, gardener and cat owner.

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Table of Contents

Anne Haclyffe | Making Art from Trash for a Profit

Anne Haclyffe

Making Art from Trash for a Profit

Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found.

—James Russell Lowell

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There's recycling. Then there's upcycling. And then there's art from trash.

I was introduced to the idea of art from trash at an open air sculpture exhibition, where one of the figures was a bigger than life size lion made completely out of old tire rubber. It was impressive - it really felt as if it could come to life any moment. Since then I've come to know artists who use scrap metal, old drinks cans, torn textiles and old books to make their works. I've collected a bit of 'junk' art, and I have also started to work a little in the area as well as refinishing vintage furniture.

Probably the first exhibited artist to recycle found objects was Marcel Duchamps, whose urinal, simply put on a plinth and entitled 'Fountain', asked tendentious questions about what art is, and what artists actually do. Jacob Beuys made art that was perishable,  deliberately so, to address issues about obsolescence, aging and change.

But folk artists have always used recycling as a way to make art. From the Gees  Bend quilt makers, who often used denim of different ages and shades because it was easier to get hold of than 'pretty' cotton materials, to sailors who made scrimshaw designs on whale teeth or carved coconut shells into cups, they've made their mark using stuff they could pick up easily or for free.

Some 'naive' and outsider artists (art brut or 'rough' art in French) and self-taught artists have also used recycled materials. The Maison Picassiette in Chartres, France, is entirely covered in mosaics made of broken pottery and glass - the man who owned and decorated the house was a janitor and sweeper working for the local municipality, and this was his life's work. In Spain, Justo Gallego Martinez, a former Trappist monk, has built his own cathedral out of salvaged materials; James Hampton, an African-American janitor, made huge pieces of religious art from recycled materials. What links many of these artists is a burning desire to convey their own vision of the world, whatever material they use to do so.

What's wonderful about making art from junk is that you can follow your inclinations and invent your own style. I base my work on stuff that I find in old farms and workshops, so it's a bit farmhouse and a bit industrial style. You might have a more delicate, or steampunk, style, or you might choose a bigger or smaller scale to work on. If you live on the coast you might use a lot of driftwood and sea-rounded stones in your work.

You might decide to concentrate on a single base material, such as scrap metal, broken ceramics, wood, paper, or fabric. Or you might put together whatever you find, in which case you may need to acquire a number of different skills such as mixing woodworking, leather-craft, paper-cutting and metalworking.

Let me stress that you should be re-using things that are broken, that are junk, that aren't mendable and that aren't precious antiques. If a canvas looks torn but you think it might be a van Gogh, get an expertise before you decide to paint over it!

The way I've set this book out is that it starts with just making decorative work from found items, and then goes on to more advanced work. I've looked at what you can do with each type of trash or natural object, and at various techniques. Then I've added a couple of chapters about the ideas behind your art, and about costing and selling your art or making a living from it in other ways.

What this book isn't is a set of easy projects you can follow. That's partly the nature of art from trash - most (though not all) artists who find their way into this field enjoy the challenge of being forced to work with random finds.

But I give you a few exercises at the end of each chapter. They are partly intended to be practical, but more than that, they're intended to make you think about what you're doing, what works (and doesn't work) for you, and how to design and put together your own projects. They're also an introduction to looking around for things you can use; once you start looking at coffee cups, soda bottles, cans, broken furniture and crockery as art materials rather than trash, your whole world changes.

If you want to make the most of trash, you'll need to do some hard thinking, but also some hard feeling. Think about why you want to make art from trash - is there something in the trash that appeals to you? If toys that have been abandoned make you feel sad, you might want to use them to talk about issues like being a refugee, being adopted, becoming old. You might want to make collages using 1950s children's books and advertisements to talk about changing views of gender, or to create a surreal version of the 50s complete with dinosaurs and vampires. Is there something in a particular material that you love? Are you a natural mudlarker or beachcomber?

While some materials are obvious candidates for recycling, you can recycle anything - so look out for unusual materials. Broken guitar strings, mussel shells from your last seafood meal, the insides of dead computers, old pencils, and more ...

•  roller skates

•  egg whisks

•  old doors

•  broken flower pots

•  rubber bands

•  eye drop vials

•  biscuit tins

•  old teapots

•  vinyl advertising banners

•  dead credit cards and ID badges

•  old rope and string

•  wings from dead butterflies

•  old taps, doorknobs, broken shower heads

•  smashed crockery

•  coat-hangers

•  metal slats from broken Venetian blinds

•  broken bicycle wheels

•  glass bottles

•  bones from the pot or from dead birds

•  feathers

•  plastics

•  old leather belt

•  old fan belts

•  corks

•  typewriter pieces...

and that's by no means an exclusive list! In fact, your mission before you read the next chapter, should you accept it, is to go for a wander round your neighborhood, see what's being