“GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — A torrent of gray, toxic water spews from a drainage tunnel and surges along the ravine, tumbling along garbage that has fallen from the Guatemalan capital’s main landfill 1,000 feet (300 meters) above. Despite the foul odors, the danger of unstable piles of garbage collapsing and the chance for heavy rain to suddenly raise the water level, dozens of people are busily at work searching for jewelry and other metal scraps knocked loose from the trash. They call the ravine the “mine,” and refer to themselves as “miners.”….”

read the full article here:  http://news.yahoo.com/guatemalas-trash-miners-risk-lives-gold-172213176.html

Plastic bags have become a symbol of consumption and waste, but artist josh blackwell re-invents them
by embroidering them with other waste materials. these everyday shopping bags and transformed into art
using thread, fabric and other materials. each bag is different with an array patterns and colour
embroidered into the thin plastic. many of the bags feature patterns which recall those of african or
indigenous north american art.

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/11333/josh-blackwell-plastic-baskets.html

http://www.joshblackwell.com

This inspiring documentary is Absolutely not to be missed:

Synopsis: Filmed over nearly three years, WASTE LAND follows renowned artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world’s largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. There he photographs an eclectic band of “catadores”—self-designated pickers of recyclable materials. Muniz’s initial objective was to “paint” the catadores with garbage. However, his collaboration with these inspiring characters as they recreate photographic images of themselves out of garbage reveals both the dignity and despair of the catadores as they begin to re-imagine their lives. Director Lucy Walker (DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND, BLINDSIGHT and COUNTDOWN TO ZERO) and co-directors João Jardim and Karen Harley have great access to the entire process and, in the end, offer stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the alchemy of the human spirit.

watch the trailer:  http://www.wastelandmovie.com/index.html

Wasteland official trailer

Click here to download the Trash to Treasure Flyer

I had fun over the weekend creating some collage-texture work and joining them together as a side table. To give the top a nice clean edge, I trimmed the lip all the way around at 45 degrees. A coat of waterbased finish later, voila! A bright, colorful and very stable but lightweight table.

Next time, I’ll have to make sure I find matching washboards to match: I was so excited to get started on this effort that I’ve used a bronze, horizontally oriented board on one side, and a plated silver, vertically oriented board on the other. Both made by National Corporation of Chicago and bought locally for about $4.00.

Though I have never riffled through the trash myself, I must admit to having tremendous respect for those who do. “Dumpster diving,” aka urban foraging, skally-wagging, garbage picking, binning, skip-raiding, skip-weaseling or trashing is an eco-excellent way to cut back on today’s excessive landfill waste, pollution and rampant squandering of non-renewable resources. Think about it! By salvaging that which is still usable, garbage scavengers, or divers as they’re commonly referred, lower landfill levels while preventing the energy-sipping manufacture of resource-robbing objects.

Sounds as if, in the best traditions of lefty journalism, our intrepid reporter got ‘down and dirty’ with the natives, even picking up some hip new lingo. Hm, maybe someday artwork made by these new heroes of the intelligencia will find their way into their parlours too.  Well, I guess I’m glad for the coverage. Want more? Go ahead and ‘skip-weasel’ your way over to the HuffPost…

A show curated by Ms Romanoff was recently brought down at the Thomkins County Public Library – I wish I’d been there in time to see it! Nonetheless, I was able to get a sense of the materials – principally wood and metal – that compose her works. More importantly I was introduced to the range of motifs captured in her dense works. I caught whiffs of the gothic, romantic and even baroque mustiness bound up in these very modern works (Constructivism meets Duchamp with a nod to Rauschenberg’s ‘combines’?).

Just about all of her materials are found at historic preservation sites and dumps, which she gives new life through spontaneous composition, clever joinery, and uniform coating treatments. Another interesting aspect of Ms Romanoff’s work is that is serves equally well as functional and decorative works.

One disappointment: there’s not alot of her work online. You’ll have to meet her yourself and seek out every opportunity you can to find her works on view!

From their site, “The Scrap Box is the place for creative recycling. You will find a large assortment of unique materials  which manufacturers and businesses would otherwise send to landfills: remnants, samples, seconds, and scraps. This good “junk” can be recycled into useful materials for  art classes, learning games, science experiments, crafts  and other expressions of creativity. The Scrap Box is open to the public.

To have us relay your answers to Mayor Bloomb