Artists bring new life to discarded items in recycled art

Painter Allison Tierney started using house paint she picked up at a dump because she couldn’t afford painting supplies. Now, five years later, her primary focus is to continue using found materials in her artwork.

“I had to really ask myself whether or not it was important that I wanted people to know it was recycled and found paint, and then I decided that yes, it is,” said Tierney, a first-year UNC MFA candidate.

“It just reflects who I am and how I live my life, so I thought it was very important that my work actually could speak that on its own.”

Local artists who take discarded objects and revitalize them fully embrace the idea that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, which is of value on Earth Day. Recycled art has become a popular genre of art because it’s cost effective, environmentally friendly and boundless supplies of materials are easily accessible.

Tierney dumpster dives and searches on Craigslist for materials such as carpets, blinds and furniture. She also saves leftovers from her other creations, especially painters tape.

“I keep all of the scraps because I will, in turn, recycle them back into a new piece of work,” she said. “My goal for next semester or next year is to make aesthetically and visually pleasing artwork that I am not purchasing any materials for.”

Senior Martha Glenn, a studio art major from Chapel Hill, is creating a sculpture of plastic foam cups to exhibit at the art department’s Senior Art Exhibition. She has collected more than 30 cups by scavenging daily through trash cans for the past two months.

“The sculpture just keeps growing and growing, and it’s kind of cool to see that because it’s like I’m cataloguing waste in a visual form,” Glenn said. “I’m using pretty much every part of the cup that I can.”

After some experimentation, Glenn said she found a way to transform the cups into a moldable plastic by burning the material with acetone.

“I really want people to think about reusability as well as how you can easily transform the meaning in these everyday objects just by looking at them differently,” she said. “They have the potential to become something different or transformed into art. They don’t have to stop at the use that we have outlined.”

Bryant Holsenbeck, an environmental artist and UNC alumna, said she hopes turning found objects into art will push people to view her materials as art and as the products of accumulated waste.

“I feel like we need to be more responsible than we are,” she said. “If you drive by my house right now — because I’m getting ready to do another big project at the schools — my porch is stuffed full of plastic bottles. I think it’s a pretty crucial issue, so I do it.”

Holsenbeck said many artists who work with reusable objects use the Scrap Exchange in Durham as a resource for finding supplies.

Fabric, cones, zippers and wood are some of the reclaimed products available to artists at the Scrap Exchange.

“We get public drop-off donations every single day pretty much, and then we actually go out and collect them,” said Ruth Warren, program manager at the Scrap Exchange. “We did 193 pickups in 2013 from businesses, industries and residents in the area.”

Warren said household items that are thrown away usually have at least 10 more uses before they are fully depleted.

“We really promote reuse, which is just taking an item and finding a different way to use it in its current state,” she said. “What we’re trying to do is spread the idea that reuse is the better option economically and for the environment.”

Mirinda Kossoff, a FRANK Gallery member artist and jewelry designer, often uses recycled silver in her jewelry along with found objects like spoons, pens and smashed bottle caps.

“I think it’s important, from an environmental aspect, to recycle and also to not forget the past,” she said. “The past is part of us and our culture. These items and objects from the past can live on in a new way.”

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