I had previously found an old broken violin (see #37) a few weeks ago which I put to use in one of my latest boxes. I just recently found THREE more violins in the rubble...or so I thought. I grabbed all four cases, excitedly pulling them over to my cart, only to find that they were empty. I left the empty cases in our work area for the other artists, but I have a feeling that no one will want them.
There is a constant flurry of movement at the Metro Transfer Station...customers driving in to off-load their trash into the bay area, and that trash then being moved, pushed and sorted all day long. I sometimes just stand back and watch this never ending parade.
I had previously found an old broken violin (see #37) a few weeks ago which I put to use in one of my latest boxes. I just recently found THREE more violins in the rubble...or so I thought. I grabbed all four cases, excitedly pulling them over to my cart, only to find that they were empty. I left the empty cases in our work area for the other artists, but I have a feeling that no one will want them.
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Someone off-loaded several large mesh bags filled with packets of garden seeds (thousands of them), all of them brand new, unopened, date-stamped 2012. I dragged them over to our work area, opened a few of the bags into some of our plastic tubs so I could have a closer look. It's a great collection of both veggie and flower seeds. I decided to keep one of the tubs filled with seeds for myself (having NO idea what I'm going to do with them) and left everything else in the corner of our work area for the other artists. Again, I'm left with the same question as with so many things that I'm finding at the Transfer Station..."Why were these thrown away?" With the amazing variety of treasures to be found at the city dump, it can be easy to get a bit carried away in the collection process. After four months into this art grant, I like to think that I've now become a bit more discerning in what I take with me each time I visit the Transfer Station. Unfortunately, like that kid in the candy store, I'm still grabbing at this and that, putting it into my tub and hauling it home to my ever-growing collection of "stuff" in my garage studio. The rules of the game are that we are allowed to take virtually everything and anything that we find.
I do have a few "white elephants" that I think I'm either going pass on to other artists, donate to SCRAP (a recycling resource center here in Portland), or just simply toss into my own garbage to be hauled away. Feeling the need to condense some of these many treasures and remove them from my work area, these are a few of those things that just haven't held my interest for my own work, and are on the way out. Yes, they seemed "valuable" to me when I first found them. A perfectly good old phone left in the dump! This was one of those finds that gave me the opportunity to return to my childhood...those days when I would have loved to tear anything apart just to see what was inside. There are a few interesting things here that I'm already playing with for one of my pieces. I love the circular shape in the opened shell, as well as the dial piece on the front. There are two cool copper bells that I've also already extracted, as well as a few misc. cogs and wheels. This was a nice find! I'm wondering if these phones are generally quite hard to find today. I believe that when they were still in use, these black phones were "owned" by the phone company, and had to be returned to the company at some point.
Yesterday was a huge day of trash...more so than ever! There were huge mounds of trash that had obviously been allowed to pile up for whatever reasons. This is great for gleaning...so much to dig through, but it also makes it a bit more difficult to navigate the bay because of the crowded conditions with all the traffic going in and out, especially on a Saturday. I feel like I'm sometimes playing the reality version of "Frogger." My camera is able to do "panorama" shots...this is the first one I've taken while at the Transfer Station...click on the photo for larger view. I also found a few mannequins along with a creepy head. I left the mannequins for Jen, the artist who makes "trash fashions," and brought the head home to use in one of my own projects. I'm not much of a slave to fashion while out at the Metro Transfer Station. We are provided with hard hats, leather gloves, safety vests, and steel shanks for our boots...along with an identifying name tag..."Glean Artist." I am already making plans to go back to Miami Beach in early December for the international art show, Miami Art Basel, which features some 260 galleries and thousands of artists from around the world. This main event is held at the Miami Beach Convention Center, but many other areas of the city also serve as venues for amazing art with as many artists and more. A number of artists are quite obviously using recycled kinds of materials in their work. I'm posting some photos here of a few of the more obvious "found object/recycled" pieces of work from the past couple years.
The Tonka truck collection...found in the dump. More food and drink items. Many cases filled with industrial sandpaper...all of it new and unopened. Unfortunately, I couldn't use any of this, and left it for the other gleaners. I did finish my newest piece, combining a number of gleaned components...old drawer, foosball pieces, doll head, part of a violin...all covered with glass.
I'm working on a new piece, a series of possibly three pieces, using the small plastic foosball players that I got at the dump several days ago. The box itself is another one of the small drawers that I pulled out of some cabinet. The box has been "papered" in my usual technique...old dictionary pages, alcohol dye...all of which ends up being sanded when dry...we assemblage artists seem to love that "aged" look. The top part is finished, and I have a few ideas that I'm still working with for the bottom. Both the top and bottom sections will be covered with glass. These little white "boards" gleaned from the dump don't really look like much at first glance, but, unlike some of the things I pick up in the trash, these were great finds! They look to be some kind of industrial samples, covered with thin protective plastic on each side which can be peeled away revealing a nice white smooth surface. I have about a hundred of them, 5 x 7"...great substrates for all kinds of smaller projects.
More recent interesting finds at the dump: Parts from discarded flashlights (I left these for another artist). LED light fixtures...I took these apart and saved some of the parts inside. I "almost" kept these two plastic flamingos, but ended up leaving them to the fate of the monster tractor.
It's very difficult to say good-bye to a loved pet. Roxie, thirteen year old schnauzer, had been suffering with heart disease issues for the last few weeks. It came to a head today. She was put to sleep early this morning, the 4th of July, 2012, at Dove Lewis, a local animal hospital here in Portland. In her memory: |
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