Why I Use Garbage Materials In My Projects

 

From an early age I had a great interest in machines, technical things, assembling and creating things. As a child from a poor family, the only way to get parts and interesting devices was to collect things from trash cans. Over the years, I realized that today's consumer society is lazy, no one wants to fix the broken devices. So for me in the trash, there are plenty of broken devices and parts to play with, to create inventions and Art. If you watch my videos or read this site regularly you will hear quite often "I made this out of trash" And it is not accidental to use exactly materials from the garbage, there are several main reasons. First, I'm still poor :D . But from an artistic point of view, things from the garbage have their own form and properties, and this can direct the artist in a specific direction. Every part found in the garbage brings with it an idea. Some artists are afraid of the white sheet, when nothing is painted yet, I am one of them. When I find something in the trash, I actually get that starting point, the white sheet is no longer white. I will explain it in another way. We all looked at the clouds when we were children and we found different shapes, shapes that resemble a dragon, a knight, a cow, a human figure and many others. Our child's brain takes the fuzzy cloud forms and completes them, develops them, gives them life. But imagine that there are no clouds in the sky, your brain has nothing to catch, no place to start. The empty sky is like the artist's white paper. For me, in my work, the pieces of garbage are like the clouds.

Another reason to use garbage materials is ecology. We are responsible for our planet and many things can be recycled through art. I feel uncomfortable going to the store and buying new boards for picture frames, as someone throws wooden things, furniture, windows next to the trash can every week, and good boards can be taken from them. One of the missions of artists is to create beautiful things from ugly things, the idea of using garbage materials fits this perfectly. I am a realist, not one of those pretentious artists who claim that art is above everything. Art is the flower in the garden in front of your house. It doesn't serve anything, it doesn't protect you from the rain, it doesn't keep you warm in the winter, you can't even fill your hungry stomach with it. But the flower in your yard creates a complete and beautiful look of the place you live. Art is the decoration of the important things. In other cases art acts as a sign that directs us to think about important things. But art is not an important thing itself.  To put a picture on your wall, you must first build a house to have a wall. Art is the shape of your car, art is the color of your t-shirt, art is the spices in your food. A shape without an engine is not a car, a color without a T-shirt does not cover you and does not warm you, spices without food do not saturate your hungry stomach. So I don't want to invest and waste new materials in art as a standalone product. Of course, this is not always possible, not everything is in the trash, but as much as possible we should use the already created material, the material that is useless for the important things. With these words I do not want to underestimate the power and importance of art, art has the power to change the world, but it is not necessary to use new materials for this, sometimes you don't even have to use materials at all. 

I think there is a lot more potential in old and useless things than most people think. Especially in learning. Imagine that you are a complete beginner in wood engraving or pyrography or carpentry. You do not need new first quality timber. You learn, you try and you make mistakes in the learning process, your first attempts will be useless, they will be a complete failure. The garbage material allows you to make mistakes for free. Garbage materials can give more people (especially children) the opportunity to try a craft and learn at a low cost. I don't mean that children have to dig in the trash like I did when I was a kid. I mean, an organization can be made to encourage companies and people who have certain types of useless materials to hand them over for use for learning and practice for school and student projects. If you have money for materials and you don't care that you will waste the good expensive material in your first attempts, not everyone is like that. I live in a relatively modern country, not very rich, but part of the European Union, with faster internet than the United States, and I have difficulty buying new material. If it's hard for me, imagine in even poorer countries how many people would like to do a craft, they want to learn, but can't afford. And at the same time we throw away millions of tons of material to rot in the landfill. Of course there is a big problem in the use of materials from the garbage and it is the transportation and storage, it is a big problem in my work. Sometimes I find something interesting in the garbage but I can't take it home. 

So my advice to you is if you want to start doing some crafts or art and you need materials for your first attempts, look for things in the trash. Don't be ashamed, you will develop your skills, maybe you will create something beautiful out of nothing, and you can only be proud of that. I say this because here in my country people are ashamed to take from the garbage, a symbol of poverty is to take from the garbage, a symbol of failure in life. But I don't care what people think, because I know that from the things I find I create something beautiful and the ridiculing people can only throw away things that they didn't create.