This month's art piece is the front of a card made with recycled fabric scraps, hand embroidered together, and bonded to a cardstock card. Some people would call me a collector of all things that may ‘possibly’ end up being useful. My studio is full of upcycled items including; fabric scraps sorted by colour in two sets of drawers, old buttons sorted into little jars and lots of beads also sorted into compartments in containers. My big cupboard is mainly full of fabrics I have been given or picked up at yard sales and thrift stores. You will find leather pieces, bits of lace and ribbon, feathers, sari silk, used tea bags, used aluminum cans, drier sheets, pieces of driftwood, shells, used clothing, and lots of balls of interesting yarns. Sprinkled among the upcycled items you will find a few things I have purchased to make all of this ‘stuff’ usable in my mixed media art projects. Acrylic paints, inks, watercolours, various acrylic mediums, assorted papers, adhesives, quilt batting, alpaca roving, blank cards, and lots of embroidery floss in handy plastic boxes sorted by colour. Reading this paragraph over, I realize that I do like order and having things sorted and easy to find. My label maker does get a lot of use.
The point of this description of my studio’s contents is that I very much believe in using what you have on hand and not always purchasing new things. This spills over into my life in other ways. Thrift stores that are organized and full of treasures give me great delight. One person’s junk is another person’s treasure. Thank you to all of you who take the time to recycle your used items for people like me to give a second life to. This makes good economic sense and it also helps our environment.
Finding beauty in the ordinary things we encounter enriches our lives. Using those ordinary things to create beauty to share with the world is extraordinary. Learning and developing new techniques to incorporate my collection of upcycled materials into pieces of art gives me great pleasure. Sharing these ideas and techniques with like-minded artists promotes my philosophy of upcycling. As you go into the holiday season, I wish you all the very best the world has to offer. Please, consider treating yourself to something you acquired that is upcycled either by you or an artist.
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