My studio is full of reused and repurposed things. I could be called a packrat, but I sometimes look at things and think I should save it because it may come in handy later, and it usually does! Although sometimes I keep things for years before I find a use for them.
My workspace employs large reused items from the family households. My studio work desk is an old table that belonged to my husband's great-grandparents. It's a heavy, solid wood table that I will never refinish. I love all the history in the marks, scratches, dents, and now, paint splatters. I also use my daughter's old dollhouse as a studio bookshelf. I have my great-grandmother’s sewing machine, my grandmother’s tea cart (still thinking about what to do with that), and an old end table from our first furniture set. In this way I keep connections to my own history right where I create.
Smaller reused items are employed for organization and painting tools. I use jam jars and chipped mugs for organization and storage. I use old silverware and ceramic tiles for stamping and mark-making. Old bubble wrap always makes fun stamped marks. I save the offcuts and scraps from fabrics for fiber arts. I collect old wooden spools to wind scraps of yarn and threads. I even repurpose my garden by using sticks, dried leaves, and flowers.
repurposed studio table
fabric offcuts for new art
jars and spools for notions
repurposed watercolor supplies
Most of my bookmaking papers and fiber art supplies are repurposed. I even reuse my own discarded paintings for collages and artist books. I try not to even let my own discards go to waste. We have a local shop, Scrap Creative Reuse, where I get almost all of my threads, yarns, fabric pieces and papers. It is always exciting to go in there and see what I can create from someone else's scraps and discards.
I am very pleased that more and more people are interested in artful mending and giving new life to old clothing. I want to start working on embellishing old clothing items with freehand embroidery. I am also learning about the Japanese art of Sashiko, the art of mending and creating clothing with scraps.
I think about my great grandmother a lot. She was a farmer's wife, lived through the great depression, and made do, mended, stored, and reused. I remember that my mother looked down on anything mended or reused, but I always loved the old things and how they adapted to new circumstances.
To me, mended and reused things have stories embedded in them, and this isn't just a modern sentimental notion. I work as a docent at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, and there are so many examples of reuse that show up in the archaeological record. For example, some of the textiles in their collection contain "patches" of reused embroidery or tapestry work depicting mythical or religious iconography that were carefully woven into new textiles. The idea of reusing and repurposing things is as old as humanity!
To celebrate National Reuse Day, the Artisan’s Cooperative recently interviewed me for an article about artistic reuse. Quotes from this post first appeared there.