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Recycled Art: Do you consume more to create?
Posted by CatCreates • 8/27/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: art, art work, creations, environment, recycled art
Yesterday, I saw pictures of recycled art work. The girl used the plastic of a pretty bottle of iced tea (you see a drawing of green leaves and red flowers) to create another design.
I'm thinking: When you create like that, does that encourage you to consume more to finish your work?
Will you be tempted to buy a new brand of product, because you can reuse the packaging / because the packaging inspires you?
Do you care more about environment or art?
Thank you.
User Comments
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"Do you care more about environment or art?"
That is the oddest question and a bit of an oxymoron. Artists who recycle do so because they CARE about the environment and want to see things repurposed instead of in a landfill. So a BIG NO to your question about if artists buy to recycle. what doing art with recycled materials does is help you open your eyes to the possible uses of a variety of materials we normally toss out or ask friends to give us recyclable materials. I have used old hubcaps, scraps of yarn, old cd's, crushed cans, bits of things, vinyl records, old dolls, old watering cans, old fans (found on the roadside)bottle caps, old tablecloths.
www.landfillart.org/index-3.html
And you will see here I will use anything I can find to create art.
www.flickr.com/photos/jafabrit/sets/72157594355343196/
It really would be quite stupid to buy things to recycle into art when they are easily found for FREE and saved from the landfill.-
I'm glad to read that!
I'm just affraid that everyone may not be that conscious. I don't know, I ask! When something is "In", people can think about the result and less about the way.
About a new brand, maybe that's possible? To change a brand for another, because the packaging is more beautiful? -
Cat, it doesn't work that way. It's not the beauty of a packaging that attracts an artist to make recycled art, it is the challenge of figuring out how to use discarded things into a work of art or use its shape, or colours as part of the artwork.
"When something is "In", people can think about the result and less about the way."
Recycled art is not new, artists have been recycling for donkey's years. Prime example is Rauschenberg with his combines in the 60's.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rauschenberg
Lous nevelson also who "used found objects or everyday discarded things in her “assemblages” or assemblies"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Berliawsky_Nevelson
What I have seen as being "in" is crafters recycling, but then crafters have been recycling for years too.
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Recycled Art: Do you consume more to create?
I would have to say no way when it comes to my recycled bags and other upcycled products that I create from such things as plastic bags, vcr tape, cassette tape, old denim jeans, lettuce netting, discarded plastic packaging from toilet paper, and bread bags. I definitely care about the environment and try very hard to reuse, recycle, and repurpose "trash" to keep it out of our garbage cans and landfills. -
Jafabrit, You changed your answer... you talked about people "in" selling things through Etsy (or something like that)...
I'm talking to them. I want to know their point of view.-
Yes, because I realized I don't know enough about where crafters on etsy get their materials to create recycled products. I am coming from it as an artist, not as a crafter. Your original question was more to do with art, not craft items which are more a product than pure art (as in earings, bags, stuffed animals etc).
Can you share a link or a picture where you saw pictures of recycled art work?
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Ok, that's interesting Jafabrit. Thank you. So I used the wrong word. (I'm not a native english speaker). I should have used the word "craft" then.
For the link:
I don't want to attack that person / artist personally. It's an example of what I consider (maybe I'm wrong) as recycled art.
I do think it pretty! But I just thought "humm... Does people finally buy beautiful package to create?"
Link:
www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=21675494&ref=em
If you check my B.Y.O.B post on my greener-lifestyle.blogspot.com, you'll see that I do crafts like that. My aunt gave me a ton of fabric she accumulated for years of project... After I washed it, I used it again, in pieces...-
Oh her work is lovely, and while the picture falls into the art category, albiet formulaic I see her overall work more as a crafter than fine art per se. She does more product type work (not saying that in a negative way). But I did a good guess on the etsy thing yes!
Now your question makes more sense to me and is not one I can even guess at, so probably you need to ask that on the etsy forums and directed towards crafters.
well I can say this, I did indulge in a bit crafty stuff when I cut old plastic shopping bags into strips, knitted them and used it for knit graffiti.
ps.enjoyed peeking at your blog.
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Art can raise the consciousness of humanity for many subjects including the environment. Essentially art initiates ideas that one day can become the social norm or even governmental legislation. Comparing the consumption of artists to other consumers seems rather askew. How about comparing them to manufacturers of just about every product in the world? They'd be at the bottom of the league for ecological destruction. Relatively speaking individuals waste an average amount of resources a year, many artists are no different except for the fact that many of them sacrifice a bit of paint or ink or paper or stone, wood ,ceramics and metal to stop the world getting covered in concrete, shopping malls, filled with smog by cars off a production line that can't make the profit to sustain its work force that votes for a wasteful government who's blinkered to change, because (in political/corporate language) it's not viable. Which in truth means it's too expensive to save the Earth; so whilst we all wait for the collapse of our current technocratic empire, just like Ancient Rome or Egypt, we should all create images and words and objects that might slow the process or at least provide an emotional level to an otherwise dry and objective legacy of destruction. -
I would say using found objects in art is more about the simple act of manipulating materials, rather than an environmental issue. However, it is nice to think that using found or recycled objects will save the planet and it might help sell a few pieces if you market it that way. -
All MY Life, I Have Been Writing The Same Lines, In Different Versions. I Legitimately Belong To The Bin, Don't I?
And Yes, Recycling Is Good. Definitely Good!
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