Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Recycling part 2

I just received a great little letter from Textured Turtle, a mosaic artist on Etsy. The Etsy Mud Team joined forces with other Etsy artists to become a little more environmental while we hone our crafts. It was always a challenge to find something to do with those pots and ceramics that just weren't up to par. Pieces that fired wrong, cracked, weren't food safe, or were just plain fugly often cluttered up a corner of my studio because I just couldn't let them end up at the dump. Many of us potters dread to think that future archaeologists would find our thousand year old pottery rejects in the midst of the petrified landfills our current society has created. So my little pile of rejected works sat in a corner collecting dust. I tried to use them at the bottom of newly potted plants but that only takes care of a small percentage. My little backyard garden is looking rather cluttered with those pieces that are still aesthetically pleasing but not functional enough for indoor use.

So, (pauses for dramatic effect) the EMT and Etsy Mosaic artists made a deal. I sent a box of my rejected work to Textured Turtle to use in her mosaic works. Win-win situation. My dusty corner is now clean, some new mosaics will have a little bit of my ceramics in them, and the landfill will not be getting filled with my pottery shards!

I challenge everyone to rethink their trash. It sure feels rewarding to help reduce waste and at the same time help add more beauty into the world!

3 comments:

Joelle Dolce Bebe said...

Love your blog & all your Work!
Im trying to use as much recycled pieces in my art as much as I can.
Im thinking of creating more "ART" pieces using soley junk from the curbside. & turning it into 2 things :
* 1 - Charming pretty things so POSH looking to show others you can turn Rusty crusty JUNK into swet pretties
* 2 - Recycled mixed media outsider art, total scraps into unique art.

so both would be completely as far as you could go from eachother yet both be created from same types of found junk.

I would LOVE to donate anything I could to help on ETSY.
Just not sure where to go or what street team to join.
but Glad I found your blog & etsy, to learn more about all the ETSY teams & shops joingin together to do good.
Happy Thanks Giving!
Joelle

Joelle Dolce Bebe said...

oooops "sweet pretties" not ~ swet ; )

Anonymous said...

Great to hear you are donating your shards! I use them myself and can't think of a better way to recycle! :)