Found Art

"The term found art—more commonly found object (French: objet trouvé) or readymade—describes art created from the undisguised, but often modified, use of objects that are not normally considered art, often because they already have a non-art function." Marcel Duchamp

Where I live (California), our "recyled" trash can is colored periwinkle. Every Wednesday, we have a full bin of bottles, cans, milk containers, cereal boxes and sometimes old papers from my kid's backpack. A brief history of our country recycling: Curbside recycling began in Baltimore in 1874. In 1897, the Benedetto family created the first "recycling center" in NYC. Interestingly, as a country, we have been recycling for 136 years.

A year and half ago, I came across Craigslist. A section called: "free stuff" captured my eye. I cannot believe what people give away in my neighborhood. I was ecstatic! I was picking up books, yarns, yards and yards of fabrics, tables, chairs, paints, office supplies, canned goods, dogs (yes! I currently have three dogs Tank, Peanut and Jelly). Anything that says FREE and within driving range, I get it. One day, I was reading a magazine and there was small article about famous people recycling their belongings. It is a group website sponsored by yahoo called FREECYCLE. You must have a yahoo account to join this group. This is somewhat similar to craigslist but more exclusive due to membership. I tried it and found more stuff. Then, my husband noticed that we cannot open the garage door anymore because it's full of somebody else's junk. I told my husband that I will be needing this things someday but he thinks that I am too busy to make something or repaint my acquired furniture. So, we called an art teacher from his school. She picked up 90% of our stuff.

Last month, my daughter had a huge project in hand. It's called FOUND ART. We were asked to create art out of recycled materials from our garage. Did I said to my husband that I am gonna be needing those stuff one day? Now, my garage is clean and I do not have materials for this project. That's when I started researching. I looked online to find some ideas about how other people create art out of recycled materials. I found some junky and funky looking stuff. Then, I found www.etsy.com. There are some very good artist that something out of nothing. What an inspiration! Needless to say, my daughter got an "A" on that project and we started to do more things together. We even made it to our first art show two weeks ago. I wasn't expecting to make money and have orders too. But we did!

I would like to share some information about our current projects. We know you can do it too! Let's do it! First, say "hi" to spring and "goodbye" to clutter...