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Making art out of garbage
Published 11:04am Tuesday, October 2, 2012It has been said that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and that point is being made extra clear at the second annual Trash to Treasure art exhibit at Thorson Memorial Library in Elbow Lake.
“The purpose is to encourage people to reuse, remake and upcycle instead of throw away,” said children’s services specialist Jan Nelson.
The exhibit will be up until Oct. 6, and there are about 30 items on display. Area residents were encouraged to participate by bringing in useful or interesting items made from what would have been junk.
The exhibit is sponsored by Community Health Care Auxiliary and Bargain Bazaar Thrift Store. Several of the items on display came from Bargain Bazaar.
Some of the featured items include a shoe rack made from an old computer desk, a pillow made from a flannel shirt, doll furniture made from old thread spools and a dog tug-of-war toy made from old T-shirts.
“I’m really impressed by what came in,” Nelson said. “People have been pretty interested in this.”
Amee Wittbrodt and her children Izzy and Idan made bowls out of old vinyl records.
“I saw one at Goodwill in Fergus Falls, and I thought, ‘We could do that,’” Wittbrodt said.
They took records nobody desired to listen to anymore and placed them on top of a metal bowl in the oven. Right when the records began to collapse around the bowl, they were taken out and formed into a bowl shape.
“They’re kind of cool,” Wittbrodt said. “There’s all kinds of stuff you can make out of trash.”
This is the second year of the event, and if all goes well, Nelson said she would like to do it again next year.
“I hope we can do this again,” she said. “These things are so cool and unique. It allows for a lot of creativity.”
