Blog Archives

Gleaning 2

6/15/2014

ReClaimIt is officially open. I volunteered at the store this afternoon for an hour, and took a few photos of some of the things that have been found by the volunteer gleaners at the city dump that are now for sale. I was really only an "emergency fill-in" this afternoon, and will probably do most of my occasional volunteer work at the Transfer Station. A few of the trashy treasures now available:

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Gleaning 1

6/13/2014

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Gleaning at the Metro Transfer Station
(the city dump)

I'm back at my old job (from two years ago) of gleaning at the city dump...only this time I'm volunteering my time to help find "art materials" for Portland's new recycling store, ReClaimIt, which is now open for business (Friday - Sunday). The city dump is a "treasure trove" of all kinds of materials, and several of us have now joined ranks with this season's five Glean Artists. In our case, we're finding quality trashed materials that can be resold at ReClaimIt and brought back to life in any number of ways. The story is always the same...we're constantly amazed at the kinds of things that get thrown away that eventually end up at the landfill. We're all on a mission of "rescue."

I met with Jane, one of the other volunteers, this morning for three hours of digging through the city's garbage.

We both entered the tipping floor with our carts...dodging cars, pickups, monster trucks, etc. We made quite a haul of good stuff in short order. All of it was stored in this holding area and soon to be delivered to the store, where it will go through a "cleaning and pricing" and then made available for sale.

A few of our finds:

As one of the Glean Artists working within the residency two years ago, I gleaned two to three time a week at the city dump for my own projects. I'm pretty sure that I won't be there that often now as a volunteer. I had a great time today with Jane, but it's HARD work!

If you live in the Portland area, ReClaimIt (1 N Killingsworth St.) is having their Grand Opening celebration on June 27th, from 6 to 9 PM.

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New Work

6/12/2014

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Deconstruct/Reconstruct

One of the "very odd" assemblage pieces that I made a couple years ago while working on my Glean residency (all materials used came from the city dump) was recently deconstructed. I had a bit of a love/hate affair with this piece, and finally decided to scrap it, while saving the horse for another idea. I had cut the toy plastic horse in half, attaching only the front part to the work. I brought it back to life in this much smaller "cardboard box" assemblage piece with other elements:

Another recently completed "cardboard box" assemblage:

I'm scheduled to be a part of a "two man" assemblage show at a gallery in Portland in October. I met with Bill Dean, the other artist, last night...one of his earlier pieces:

Besides bringing our own work, we've decided to try to do a collaborative piece for the show using this box...I'm going to get started on one side of the box, and Bill will do the other:

Stay tuned...this promises to be a fun project!

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Assemblage Class

6/3/2014

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Facetime
Portland to New Jersey

Several weeks ago I blogged about my facetime experience going into a high school art classroom in New Jersey...HERE! Through the magic of technology, I was able to "step into" their classroom and share some information about my own assemblage work. The students created assemblages of their own as a part of their classroom assignment. I now have a few more photos of the students' final work...hats off to all of you for your fantastic creations!!