Spring 2006
In This Issue:
Boston's Sustainable Art School
According to Boston artist Susan Rodgerson, "Recycling is like
voting - every individual matters to the whole. The individual CAN make a
difference. Making art out of recycled materials extends the life of an object and
allows artists and consumers to see opportunities in everything."
In 1991 Rodgerson took an opportunity presented by a program
offered by Boston's public schools, designed to teach art and entrepreneurship
after school hours. She and five teens started a business called Artists for
Humanity, which created art - large paintings and air-brushed t-shirts -
in Rodgerson's small studio, then sold it to businesses and corporations.
The EpiCenter's stair railings feature windshields rescued from auto junkyards throughout New England.
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Over the years, the enterprise grew steadily. Today the nonprofit
group employs 13 artist/mentors and 120 teen artists and earns $400,000 a
year through the sale of graphics and commissioned art. They incorporate
found materials, when possible, into sculpture designs, and are
developing clocks from spray cans and chess sets from copier parts.
A few years ago, AFH raised money to commission a new and larger
building in South Boston to house studios and gallery space. Nick Rodrigues, a
staff sculptor, explained that they wanted a sustainable design for their
new arts center to raise youth awareness about both their personal and the
community's environment. It also symbolized AFH's goal of developing
sustainable, creative lives through the arts. AFH staff and teens
participated in the building's development with the support of the
project's architects, Arrowstreet Architects.
Arrowstreet held workshops for students throughout the process;
teens made building models; a former AFH member, who is now an architect,
designed a section of the building; both teens and graduate artists help
design and nstall parts of it. In addition to optimizing energy and light,
the building, dubbed the EpiCenter, incorporates recycled materials -
trolley ties that were torn up from the street are now fence posts and
windshields from local junkyards are incorporated into the mezzanine's railing
system. Rodrigues designed bathroom sinks from corrugated metal
used on the exterior of the building and fashioned toilet paper
holders from empty 5-gallon water jugs.
Completed in 2005, the EpiCenter's design has earned the architects rare
recognition for their innovative art school - two awards for design
excellence by the Boston and New York Society of Architects and LEED
certification at the platinum level, the highest category of
sustainability a building can achieve.
To learn more about AFH and their projects, visit
www.afhboston.com
Swap-O-Rama-Rama Grows, Looks for New Teachers
Bag made from a brassiere with cloth silver metallic sack and crystals by artist/instructor Itsi Atkins.
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Swap-O-Rama-Rama is a 21st century quilting bee. It combines a
massive clothing swap with workshops and demonstrations to help
participants jazz up clothes they haven't worn in a while or make unwanted items
from someone else's closet their own.
The garments' transformation from dull to stylish comes about with
the help of local designer/teachers and craftsmen who offer their expertise
at free do-it-yourself stations complete with sewing machines and all
necessary (if sometimes unusual) supplies to turn sows' ears into silk purses.
People of all ages, crafty or not, are encouraged to
participate. The winter Swap in New York City on February 20, 2006,
brought out 550 men and women (about 50-50). Swappers started by paying $10
at the door and adding a bag of clothes no longer worn to the pile -at
this event 6,000 pounds of apparel were available, and no one was turned away
for lack of admission.
Instructor and author Megan Nicolay helped a participant update an old T-shirt into a sleeveless top.
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Then they selected their new favorite outfits-to-be and the fun
began. At the end of the evening, which also featured
entertainment, food and a recycled fashion show, unused clothes were donated to a local
women's shelter.
At each Swap - this was the second public event - local fiber
craftsmen and tailors are on hand to show participants the basics of
traditional embellishment skills (embroidering, silk screen,
crochet and ironing on patches), while alternative designer/teachers hold
scheduled demonstrations of more unusual decorative techniques.
Instructor Alison Lewis, who teaches fashion technology at the
Parsons School of Design in New York, said she uses crafts and
fashion to get people interested in electronics. She taught participants in her
February Fashion Hack workshop how to make a "Twinkle Tote" by
attaching a cell phone dangle to a purse pocket so the purse lights up when the
phone rings. Visit www.alisonlewis.com to see some of her
other projects. In March do-it-yourself videos will be available on site.
Itsi Atkins' workshop offered the opportunity to think way
outside the box. The former film producer, who now designs handbags
from recycled materials, showed how used brassieres can make functional
pocketbooks, belts and backpacks. "My bags are for the woman strong
and secure enough to wear her bra on her shoulder," he explained.
T-shirt transformed into a tote bag by Megan Nicolay.
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Atkins also makes elegantly finished, limited edition handbags,
sold in boutiques, from EPA hazard masks and new douche bags.
"Fashion needs to make the brain work," he said. Visit
www.redcarpethandbags.com to learn more about Atkins and his work.
Megan Nicolay, whose new book,
"Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-Shirt"
has just been published, held a workshop with
the same title. Among other ideas, she showed participants examples of T-
shirts transformed into skirts, leg warmers and pillows - and helped them transform . She
belongs to a crafting collective, "The Department of Craft" which
celebrates self-made projects as an antidote to the mass production of fashion
and lifestyle goods.
Swap-O-Rama-Rama is the brainchild of artist and event
organizer Wendy Tremayne, and is spreading rapidly from Manhattan
to cities throughout the U.S. and Canada. Although there have been only two
public meets in New York - the first in October 2005 - meets are scheduled
for 2006 in Boston, MA; Los Angeles, CA; Seattle, WA; Baltimore, MD;
Atlanta; Durham, N.C.; Fairfield, Conn.; San Mateo Calif., Philadelphia, PA, and
Toronto, Canada, all put together locally. Tremayne guides the process and
"holds organizers' hands" via email, as well as helping them look for
teachers in the area who want to participate.
If you would like to teach a workshop, share your sewing,
knitting or other textile skills, or help organize a local event,
visit www.swaporamarama.org and click the link: "Start a
Swap in Your City."
David Edgar's Finny Critters With An Eco-Message
Imagine a world in which a century of increasing phosphate levels
in Earth's marine environment has caused new, synthetic life forms to emerge.
Artist David Edgar has created the inhabitants of this new world -
Creatures from the Plastiquarium - a school of quirky, colorful marine life crafted
from recyclable detergent bottles.
A sculptor who had previously mostly worked with metals, Edgar
first made a mask from a plastic bottle in the colors of his local football
team on a whim. He soon discovered the joys of working with recyclable
materials, and has now populated his fanta-sea with large
Tide-Finned Arm &
Hammerheads and Snuggle Serpents as well as the
bright Bottle Fish pins available through Eco-Artware.com.
Snuggle Serpent by David Edgar made from plastic orange
juice bottles filled with detergent bottle spouts.
Edgar, currently Associate Professor of Art at the University of
North Carolina at Charlotte, has directed the Armory Art Center in West
Palm Beach, Florida and has been a production artist for the Walt
Disney Company, in addition to his academic career. His work is included in
corporate, institutional and private collections, and can be seen in the
Trashformations East, an exhibition of recycled art, touring the
country through 2007 (for dates/places visit
www.fullermuseum.org) and and
Transformation 5, another exhibition of recycled art, touring the
country through 2007 (for dates/places visit
www.contemporarycraft.org)
Red Bull Announces Its 2006 Art of the Can Art Competition
Red Bull Energy Drink announced its national 2006 Art of the Can
contest in April. Selected original works of art created out of Red Bull cans will be
displayed in one of three public exhibitions taking place this fall
in three cities: Atlanta, Dallas and Minneapolis. A distinguished panel of
judges and art critics will determine the top winners in each of the three
cities. A grand prize winner will be selected in each city and each winner
will receive expense paid trip for two to Art Basel, a contemporary art fair in
Basel, Switzerland.
Interested artists can register online at
www.redbullartofthecan.com.
Entries from Atlanta and Dallas must be submitted by July 22, 2006 while entries from
Minneapolis must be submitted by August 12.
The first U.S. contest took place in Boston in 2005 which received
entries from 400 artists from 44 states and 11 different countries.
New Books: Save the Earth in Style
We've added these eco-related books to our bookstore. Read the full
reviews at www.eco-artware.com/books.php.
Kathleen Hackett and Mary Ann Young, known professionally as The
Salvage
Sisters, offer 50 ideas for finding new uses and meaning for cast-offs in
The Salvage Sisters' Guide to Finding Style in the Street and
Inspiration in the Attic. Among their liberating ideas is a rule for considering
discards: "Don't look at it for what it is, but for what it could
be." While especially helpful for people setting up new homes, other readers
may find a new idea or two and definitely an infectious creative attitude.
Ever get tired of a T-shirt? Megan Nicolay understands, and share
techniques for finding the potential halter, blouse, skirt, leg-warmer, tank
top, tube top, beanie, pillow, pot holder, tablecloth and more in the
ubiquitous, undecorated t-shirts in everybody's closet in Generation T:
108 Ways to Transform a T-Shirt. One-third of the projects are "no sew" for
those who
never learned to use a needle and thread, or just prefer not to.
Super Crafty: Over 75 Amazing How-To Projects (Susan Beal, Torie
Nguyen, Rachel O'Rourke & Cathy Pitters) offers 76 unique crafts projects
for your home, wardrobe, family pet and more. Some have exact patterns and
directions while others are open-ended - they provide enough information for
readers to use their own experience and imagination in developing the design.
Each project is marked with a symbol indicating degree of difficulty,
appropriateness for kids and expense of materials (many are reused and
free).
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