Winter 2005

In This Issue:

• Swap-o-Rama-Rama: Reclaiming Fashion
• A Can-Do House: A New Twist to Aluminum Siding
• More Wrap Art from John Boak
• Web Citings
• Subscribe to Recycling Rag

Swap-o-Rama-Rama: Reclaiming Fashion

Amy, shown here, wears a prize-winning, updated outfit she made at Swap-o-Rama-Rama. She had cut off the bottom of a dress she culled from the collective donation pile and used the fabric to add a border and a pocket to plain trousers she had brought from home. The tote bag was donated as a prize to the Swap by Eco-Artware.com.

About 500 people gathered at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center on Manhattan's lower east side on October 9 for the first public Swap-O-Rama-Rama -- an event consisting of a clothing exchange, hands-on workshops teaching participants to both redesign and recycle used clothing and intermittent fashion shows. During the five- hour event, attendees learned how to embroider, knit, crochet, turn old brassieres into new handbags, and create high-tech pocket-protectors impervious to electronic snooping.

"The vibe was extremely intimate, and the people were lovely," said organizer Wendy Tremayne. "They were really meeting and bonding over creative projects, learning how to make things in a community."

Participants contributed a suggested entry fee of $5 (no one was turned away for lack of funds) and a bag of unwanted clothing when they arrived. Then they selected new-to-them items from the collective mass of clothing. But free fashion was just the start.

With the help of knowledgeable seamstresses and costume designers, who provided free lessons and assistance with alterations at on-site sewing stations, Swap-goers created "new" fashionable clothing from their finds.

Swap-o-Rama-Rama started three years ago as "a fantasy thing," a seasonal do-it-yourself event in Tremayne's friends' New York apartments. As the events grew, she began to think about the connection between creativity and community.

"I feel strongly about deconstructing the consumer," Tremayne said. "We've become removed from our own creativity by industry, and in turn, our connection to community. I want people to take back their creativity ... and discover the playful endeavor of making things."

Bag designer Itsy Atkins taught a workshop on turning brassieres into bags and belts at Swap-o-Rama-Rama.

Calling on her contacts in the underground art/music scene and far-flung Internet list-servs, Tremayne assembled an array of workshop leaders with varied sewing and clothing design skills. Using her experience as an event organizer and fund-raiser, she secured financial backing from the Black Rock Arts Foundation, part of the Burning Man organization. And acknowledging her interest in mystical traditions, she added the extra Rama to the event's name in honor of a Hindu divinity.

The clothing swap generated between 2,000 and 3,000 pounds of duds. At the end of the day, 25 bags of leftover clothing were donated to the St. Martin de Porres women's shelter in Brooklyn.

The next Swap-o-Rama-Rama will be held in a larger rooms on Monday (Presidents Day), February 20th, 2 pm to 7 pm at the Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn, New York. "We outgrew the last workshop in an hour," Tremayne said. For more details, visit www.swaporamarama.org.

A Can-Do House: A New Twist to Aluminum Siding

Got a few thousand soda and beer cans you've been waiting to recycle? Architect Richard Van Os Keuls, a resident of Silver Spring, Maryland, might be an inspiration.

Van Os Keuls lives in a 1953 brick tract house, to which he built a 230 sq. foot addition on to the back in 2000. The nearly-finished plywood and insulation board structure was covered with building paper, waiting to be sided or otherwise finished. He found bricks too expensive, and didn't want the usual siding alternatives. After some thought and consideration, Van Os Keuls decided to try a new medium no architect and none of his clients had used before -- flattened aluminum soda and beer cans.

Years before, he had seen a truck run over a discarded soda can and suspected it would make a wonderful aluminum shingle, and he began stashing a few discarded cans away to explore this notion later. When Van Os Keuls finally decided to side his addition, his goal wasn't to be "artsy" or make a "green" statement -- he simply wanted an inexpensive way to cover the side of his house.

He soon discovered that readying and applying thousands of cans is a labor-intensive process. Van Os Keuls prepares the cans in small batches -- three to twelve at a time. Each can is washed to avoid attracting ants; then it is smashed, twice. Wearing heavy-soled construction boots, he first stomps each one with his feet and then further flattens it with a sledge hammer. Hammering rounds the corners so the cans can't cut anybody who leans up against the wall. Each can, secured with a long aluminum nail, overlaps the previous one. When a varied assortment of aluminum "shingles" is collected and processed, he puts up 30-40 at a time. He never puts up two cans of the same color together. Van Os Keuls estimates the project will take 22,000 cans, and as of April, 2004, he is almost done with only 2000 cans to go.

At first he was going to put all the cans up and then paint them. However, Van Os Keuls found that he liked liked the play of sunlight on the colors. Because he likes lots of color, he began collecting beer, juice and soda cans from other countries and began buying cases of soda for the color of the can: Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray soda (chartreuse cans) and cheap grape soda, for example. "I have never bought something and thrown out the content," he said.

Maryland doesn't have a deposit-return on cans like some states, so cans find their way into recycling bins and then into county dump recycling facilities. Van Os Keuls first tried to collect soda cans by getting them from the local neighborhood dump, but was cited twice and fined for theft of city property and for transporting stolen property. So now, he has to count on donations, finding cans that don't make it into people's bins, and buying brands and flavors whose colors he likes.

As he goes along, Van Os Keuls learns more about his "shingles" -- they are not noisy when it rains. He knows that over time, aluminum generally attracts a chalky oxidation, but this hasn't appeared in the three years since the project started -- the printer's ink on the aluminum is slowing down the process. However, Van Os Keuls suspects the colors on his house will look more muted in five years.

Van Os Keuls' home may be one-of-a-kind for a while. While currently three of his clients are "mildly interested" in the technique, he does not plan to use it commercially until can-washing and -flattening becomes mechanized. He has made some preliminary experiments to accomplish this but the new system requires more work and time.

For further information, contact Richard Van Os Keuls by mail: 1507 Gridley Lane; Silver Spring, Maryland 20902

More Wrap Art from John Boak

Gift wrapping is an old, old idea - it started in China when paper was invented in 105 A.D. - and people have been enhancing their gifts with different types of paper ever since. Revisionist wrapper John Boak continues to add new ideas to this tradition with his Wrap Art system, a year-round way to reclaim scraps of paper, plastic, fabric, twine, ribbon or other to-be-discarded items for decorative purposes.

In general, Wrap Art consists of combining more than one piece of material per package with a glue gun, attaching them in interesting combinations. (For a full description, see the Rag, Spring 2005).

Here are two new examples of John's Wrap Art as an inspiration for drawing on our inner creativity - and scrap piles - to enhance our holiday gifts to others. Perfect for people who like surprises, art lovers or sophisticated friends who think they have seen everything.

	1) This package was wrapped with two pieces of found paper and two ribbons. The top piece of paper is a promotional poster for Adobe Photoshop from seven years ago. The lower is an indigo proof for a postcard with a rose on it. The blue rectangle and silver initials tag are added on. One ribbon is white gauze; the lower, red ribbon covers the client logo on the rose-postcard paper.
	2) A radio remote wrapped in red tissue paper, then in green foam, burrito-wrap style, closed up with red Christmas gauze ribbon. A wooden half-sphere glued on to the ribbon finishes it up.

Web Citings

Aluminous Publishing

www.aluminouspublishing.com offers craftspeople instructions for making wreaths, baskets, Christmas ornaments, stars, flowers, necklaces and more from ubiquitous, lightweight and recyclable aluminum cans. The safe, strong, lightweight, compact, impermeable containers for food and drink for people and pets have been recyclable since they were introduced in 1965.

Publisher and artist Alice Lund has designed these projects and provides easy-to-follow directions for transforming containers into brightly decorative objects to add pleasure to our lives. Five projects are available free of charge and the remainder are downloadable for a fee, either as a single project or in two books of 50 patterns each. See our crafts section for Aluminous' step-by-step instructions for a Holiday Wreath.

Until the next issue,
Reena Kazmann
Eco-Artware.com

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