recycled art

I had to cancel a workshop planned for today due to low registration. Everyone is busy in the summer! It's a shame because it's a really fun day! The workshop involves watching a presentation on assemblage (to situate its place in art history and for inspiration) and then receiving a package with $3, a map of local garage sales, and some scavenging guidelines. We go out to garage sales and find our treasures (within our $3 budget) and then come back to the studio to create assemblages. I did a trial run with my friend Carole a few months ago and here is what I purchased: a collapsible vegetable steamer and a string of IKEA lights with colourful candy-like disks. The items cost me $2.50 and I made two pieces with them! I took the steamer apart and used the base for my piece above, my favourite of the two pieces I made. I used an X-acto knife to strip away the plastic and expose the fine wires from the string of lights (a very tedious and tricky business) and attached them to form a nest-like structure (surprise, surprise). Eventually, when I have some extra time, I will add more of these wires to plump up my nest, but in the meantime it just sits on my work table catching the light and making me smile. Below is another piece I made using the the other components of the vegetable steamer and one of the colourful disks and a wire piece from the string of lights. It's mounted on a scrap piece of wood painted black. I'll keep them around as examples of what you can do with a few garage sale buys!