Trash to treasure report via finalist Mark Lukach‘s blog.
Posts Tagged ‘upcycle’
First look at SMART Art finalists
Friday, May 29, 2009Upcylcing on the LES
Tuesday, May 19, 2009Today is the last day to check out entries in the Pratt/Terracycle Upcycling Design Competition hosted by Sustainable NYC. I may try to swing by. Report back if you go.
Sometimes, when killing time in airports
Sunday, April 26, 2009…I root around online for trash tidbits. At home, I search Google News at least once a week for terms like “trash,” “garbage,” “solid waste,” “recycle,” and “compost,” but I rarely take the time to dig into specific sites for newly posted trashy treasures. Clearly I should more often. Just look what I found today searching Flickr for photos tagged “upcycled”.
PJ Harvey upcycled album bouquet via scribblenation on Flickr
In case you were wondering, there are over 16,000 photos tagged “upcycled” on Flickr (and an overlapping nearly 8,000 tagged upcycle) like the stellar photo above from scribblenation’s photostream of an upcycled album cover via which I discovered the Trashion Nation photo pool and entries in the Upcyclist Party Contest pool.
Make Art, Not Trash
Monday, February 23, 2009I’m not quite sure how to describe Make Art Not Trash links. It’s an online collage, a blog in one page and a time-sucking portal for any trashie. Here are some things I’ve discovered via this…installation.
Made in the Philippines
Untitled
Blob-like sculptures made of plastic bottles.
Keybag Red
maison martin margiela
A halter top fashioned from vintage gloves.
Cassette Wallet
And wallets made out of old cassette tapes. Those last two items are both via design boom, a site to bookmark for a day when the economy bounces back (or to keep an eye on now for DIY knock-off inspiration).
Here’s that Make Art Not Trash link once again. Happy Web surfing.
UPDATE: just figured out that Make Art Not Trash links is just one page of the site Make Art Not Trash run by Cynthia Korzekwa of Art for Housewives fame. What a Web presence!
Upcycling for the Inauguration
Monday, January 19, 2009I’m heading to DC tomorrow to feel the streets. And then it’s off to Lagos through the weekend for the day job, so advance warning posting may be light this week. In the meantime, enjoy the side bar, archives AND this stellar new webisode from the suburbly-named Threadbanger.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
They pack a lot into six minutes, including two amazing upcycling facts:
1) Number six plastic—such as those clear clam shell containers from the salad bar—can be used to create superfly customized shrinky dinks! [More on this amazing recycling trick from Curbly]
2) You can create your own teeshirt stencil by printing out your design on an old clear plastic folder (finally a use for all that now-awkward A4 stationary aquired during my European junior year abroad).
I love everything about this episode: the shellacked name chain and Obama earrings, the DIY hipster tees, even the brief ad for wePCtv promoting an interview with my internet crush, hip hop DJ, blogger and vlogger Jay Smooth of Underground Railroad, Hip Hop Music and illdoctrine. If there have to be ads, let them be for quality content.
Organ Donor
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
My friend Flex Unger has a small recording studio in Brooklyn full of broken toys and good intentions. A lover of to-do lists, Flex recently went around the studio taking pictures of the things he’d like to fix or convert in the coming months, which he posted on his blog along with short descriptions of the forthcoming projects.
Organ parts
[NOTE: This post has been updated to correct gross errors in my understanding of all things technical. Despite years of wood shop, metal shop, power shop, a class on bike repair and accelerated physics, I still don’t quite get how to take things apart or put them back together again. Apologies if you rushed out to try these projects at home between 5 and 11pm EST.]
My favorite of these resolutions is the master plan to deconstruct and recycle an old Viscount organ (shown above, in pieces) to make a portable drum machine and build an amplifier and a mini organ. Inspiration for extracting the organ’s drum machine came from the YouTube clip below; and from a primal calling to amass the world’s largest collection of portable beat-making devices. The hope is to use a 1/4 inch jack from the organ’s circuitry so that the device can be output into an amp.
Project #2 is an amplifier that will serve purposes equal parts form and function. Flex has an oven range—rescued from the trash!—attached to a wall that is supposed to reverberate for an echo effect. If I understand correctly, by extracting the organ’s speaker and its covering, he can a) preserve the attractive vintage fabric look of the Viscount and b) use it to build a makeshift PA that will carry sound over to the oven range.
Organ fabric
Project #2 has the added bonus of incorporating this rad-looking Zenith tube radio found on the streets of Brooklyn, which will serve as the amplifier.
Tube radio
For the third and final project, Flex plans to collect the remaining parts and put them back together in the form of a mini-organ.
Stay tuned for progress reports. And if, by chance, you’re in the market for a green recording studio for your next creative audio project, consider Clean and Humble, a trash and artist-friendly space.
everydaytrash 