Making Beautiful and Useful Objects from Recycled Materials: The Artists Who Design Them and The Stores Which Sell Them.

Eco-Art and art from recycled materials seems to be finally coming of age. What started some years ago as small, isolated movements here and there in the world seems to be finally reaching some kind of "critical mass" where it soon could become big business.

To give you an idea of "what's happening", we have assembled some inspiring websites which feature various aspects of the recycled art and design business.

Stores and Businesses Which Feature Art and Useful Objects Made from Recycled Materials

Broken By Design "... I take particular pleasure in creating  Pique Assiette* mosaics from unwanted chipped dishes. The china and porcelain I use are of differing styles and time periods, with their own history and charm...."

Business Card Holder from Recycled Circuit Boards

Home and Planet "... located in Bethlehem, PA, is the largest retail store in the nation dedicated to high style, earth friendly home furnishings and gifts. We opened ten years ago to highlight the work of artists and small companies using recycled materials, found objects, organically grown cotton and sustainably harvested wood. Representing over 300 artists and small companies, we sell everything from dining tables made from steel I-beams and vintage wood to elegant recycled glass tableware, luxurious organic cotton bedding and towels to funky recycled plastic furniture. We offer gifts made from items as diverse as old records, bicycle parts, subway maps and tokens, inner tubes, license plates, oil drums, foundry patterns as well as a few things that really have to be seen to be believed. Most recently, we added three lines of contemporary upholstered furniture to complement our unique home accessories. In addition, our one-of-a-kind items (Rare Finds) from around the world -- including hand painted movie posters from Ghana, boat prows from India, temple offering containers from Burma, Tibetan cabinets and Sugar Grinders from Indonesia -- bring a sense of global style to your home...."

Earth Studio Moab's Recycled Art "... Bird Feeders, Key Hooks, Picture Frames and Welcome signs–all made of 100% recycled wood. Each piece of wood is hand finished with rich, vibrant color just like our metal art. The art of Teresa Del Rito is also made of reclaimed, or found objects which she adorns with painted details, glass beads, candles and bells. Each piece is a completely unique creation. Resource Revival, an Oregon-based company, creates fantastic picture frames, clocks, and more—all from recycled bike parts. These are the perfect gifts for cycling and adventure enthusiasts...."

eco-artware.com "... designs by 25 (and counting) artists: hand-crafted jewelry, personal, home and office accessories, business gifts and custom awards. All are made from recycled, reused and natural materials...."

Gaia Goods Handmade Recycled Products ".... is now introducing to the United States market a line of trendy, colorful and affordable items made from reclaimed plastic bags in association with ConserveUSA. This process does not involve the use of dyes or colors, is very unique and operates on fair trade standards. We all know that disposable bags are a major threat to our environment so we’re happy to see a company offering an alternative for one of our biggest waste problems...."

Green Glass "... makes some unique and pretty clever glassware by cutting up recycled bottles.  Because we don't melt the glass down it saves 90% of the energy normally used to make recycled glass.  They make fantastic looking glasses and a great talking point...."\

Indigo Arts Recycled Art and Toy Bazaar "...In Senegal, Mali, Kenya and other countries in Africa, resourceful people have long excelled at fashioning toys from the available materials - tin cans, wire and scrap rubber and plastic that we would discard as trash. In addition to brightly colored trucks made from beer cans and wire bicycles, Indigo offers buckets constructed of tomato cans, and lunch-boxes and suitcases from tuna cans (lined with Senegalese funny papers!). Continually searching the world for more such innovations, we also offer cars, planes, purses and frames from Vietnam, tin ornaments from Mexico, papier-mache bowls from South Africa and cars and trucks from Cuba!..."

Kwytza Kraft "... collect post-use, single-use chopsticks from restaurants in China, thoroughly clean them, sanitize them at extremely high temperature and pressure, and use them to make high-quality accents for the consumer’s living space. The idea is Kwytza (pronounced k-why-tsa) Kraft.... Today, we are happy to offer a broad range of recycled home accessories pairing eastern aesthetics with western conservationism. Inspired by the beauty of the Chinese culture, all Kwytza Kraft products evoke an Asian elegance that compliments any environment. In an effort to be more environmentally friendly, the colored chopsticks are all dyed using natural plants from China...."

Nygwenya Glass "... an environmentalist's dream. The products, which include a range of tableware, drinking glasses, vases, jugs and ornamental African animals, are all handmade from recycled glass. Most of this is from soft drink bottles, gathered from all over Swaziland. Not only are the people of Swaziland encouraged to collect the bottles, but Ngwenya Glass works with the local schools to instill in the children a sense of environmental awareness. In exchange for building materials and the sponsorship of the soccer team, the students must participate in roadside clean-up campaigns...."

Recycled Glassworks "... specializes in the production of handmade, unique dishes and bowls.  Every piece is cut from used window-type glass, and kiln-fired over molds that give them their new form, as well as a brand new life... "

Shades of Ngweny ".... a glass blowing factory is the hub of the Ngwenya Glass Village, only 20 minutes from JHB, a glass wonderland where you can watch the ancient art of glassblowing at work and buy fabulous handmade recycled glassware..." South Africa

Cardboard Architecture and Furniture

Houses of the Future Cardboard House.... a "springboard" for recycled paper houses of the future.

Papercrete "... also called fibrous cement, is a remarkable building material made with recycled paper/cardboard, sand, and Portland cement. You mix the dry ingredients together with water to make a slurry. This slurry dries into hard blocks that are strong (260 psi compressive strength), lightweight, and an excellent insulator (R 2 per inch). Papercrete holds its shape even when wet. Except for the cement, all the ingredients are free or almost free, which makes papercrete a very inexpensive building material. Although there are people who are building papercrete/paper adobe structures in the $1.00 a square foot range, a more realistic price is $5 - $10 a square foot. It all depends on how many of the materials (lumber, windows, etc.) you can scrounge. But no matter how you do it, building with papercrete/paper adobe is very inexpensive...."

Retur Design Cardboard furniture from Sweden

Shigeru Ban "... has come up with a building system based on cardboard tube columns....In the last decade Ban designed recyclable and easy to mount cardboard log houses as well as designing shelters for refugees in Rwanda. He is also recently responsible for designing the Japanese pavilion at EXPO 2000 in Hannover, a 75 metre long barrel structure made of giant cardboard tubes and covered in waterproof paper...."

The Paper House "... Mr. Elis F. Stenman, a mechanical engineer who designed the machines that make paper clips, began building his Rockport summer home out of paper as a hobby. That was in 1922 The paper was meant to be good insulation...."

Recycled Building Materials

EcoStores Nebraska

Recycled Housing Materials List of recycled housing and building materials.

Landscape2Go.com "...Used as gravel or mulch, 100% recycled glass, tumbled safe for kids and pets, can divert tons of glass away from landfills...."

Straw, Sticks and Bricks

The Last Straw International Journal of Straw Bale and Natural Building.

Using Recycled Fuel to Save Money in Processing Recycled Glass

Art and Crafts by Artists Who Recycle

Corrugated Art by Luci Lytle "... Using a utility knife, straight edge, tweezers and white craft glue, I construct the frame or foundation for each piece from recycled corrugated cartons. The primary surface embellishments are created in a style I call Corrugated Mosaic, which relies primarily on the subtle color of the paper itself, plus the texture and shadows created by the corrugations. To expose the corrugations to best effect, I peel away the surface layer of paper. The peeled corrugated is then cut into pieces which I use as tiles for the mosaic pattern. I also cut thin cross sections through the corrugations, which I use to separate the corrugated pieces. In the final stage, I spray each piece with clear, acrylic varnish to protect against moisture...."

Fused Glass Tile from Recycled Wine Bottles

John Dahlsen "...For many years Dahlsen constructed artworks from detritus found on the eastern shores of Australia. He took society's discarded objects of the everyday and transformed them into formal compositions. He would often take thousands of black objects and arrange a formalist composition that questioned our need for mass production of the everyday. By presenting the discarded objects in a formalist composition he acknowledged the endless waste in producing ancillary items that support our everyday existence...."

Leo Razzi Recycled metal art.

OzMosaics "... unusual items poking out of boxes stuffed to the brim of collections (old chess pieces from Mexico, a broken china ballerina (soon to be “the last dance”), cracked crystal glasses, buttons, shells, teaspoons, buckles, old thimbles and stamps, a souvenir from Harrods) or a certain colour blooming in my garden becomes the inspiration for another mosaic picture or recycled art. I get a thrill creating mosaic 3-D pictures in recycled picture frames…. recycled tiles, china, tree branches, lace, pearls, glass, odds and ends mingled with vitreous glass, becomes unusual tesserae (if you catch me eyeing off your jewellery, kitchen crockery, or garden tools, beware) …  I create mosaic garden décor out of old fridge doors, shovels, wheelbarrows, car fronts, hub caps and I am currently creating a mosaic outdoor sofa on a mosaic carpet in my front garden.  I also plan to mosaic the whole block fence surrounding our property, in the next month...."

Roger Braddy "From Dumpster to Gallery"

Making Silk Origami Swans

Fabric Origami "... that fabric creates some of the most breathtaking boxes, ornaments, and items when folded origami fashion. It's more forgiving than paper - you can just iron out your mistakes and go at it again - and it's durable, which makes it perfectly giftable...."

Silk and Beaded Handbags

KnotJustKnitting.com has virtual handbag galleries: Silk Handbags and More Silk Handbag Join their Yahoo group in order to participate in future handbag "contests". While these handbags are not necessarily made from recycled materials, they certainly could be.

Wearable Art Patterns

Here are some patterns which could be used in creating wearable art out of recycled materials:

Opera Coat

Pavelka Wearable Art Patterns

Making Jewelry from Recycled Materials

Recycled Paper Beads

The Art of Papermaking from Recycled Materials

The Art of Recycling and Hand Papermaking

Making Paper by Hand

Making Recycled Homemade Paper

Recycled Art Photos

Alexandromeda Recycled Computer Parts Art

1998 Recycled Art Calendar and 1999 Recycled Art Calendar

Recycled Jewelry Contest Winners

Teaching Children How to Make Recycled Art

How to Make Kites out of Recycled Fabric and Paper

Kinder Art "...the largest collection of free art lessons on the Internet..... an enormous collection of resources featuring thousands of tried and tested free lesson plans, ideas and resources which have been contributed by people from around the world.... an opportunity for parents, educators, artists, students and kids (of course) to have fun while exchanging ideas, finding information, conducting research and learning new things... all in one place...." Large number of these lessons feature recycled materials.

Montesorri Mom: Junkyard Art

The Imagination Factory "...we teach children and their caregivers creative ways to recycle by making art.... Toys, Games, and Other Fun Stuff shows how to reuse trash to make items such as folk art dolls, snow globes, mancala games, puppets, and much more!..."

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