From Trash To Art

The other day, my mother was helping me clean. I’d a giant mess to go through, and she and I were jamming to music on my phone. A shelf had started to fall, causing a giant mess. My favorite mug broke. Even though I was devastated, all that broke was its handle. I looked at it. No matter that it was no unusable as a drinking vessel — especially because its handle broke into many, many little pieces —, there was a way to turn it into something else. 

My goal, after it broke, was to turn it into a pen cup.

All I needed, was to sand down the nubs left behind by its broken handle.

This is only one example of how you can turn trash into art. 

Another example is the mirror I’d upcycled into what it is now.

I’d been taking a shower. I climbed out, toweled off, and was exiting the bathroom. Cue my favorite mirror falling on its face and the top of the glass shattering. It shattered everywhere. My heart was devastated, but, when I saw how it had broken, my mind saw an opportunity. For months, I pondered how I would turn it from trash into treasure. It took a bat napkin, glitter, and black paint, but I did it. It turned into a piece of art, art I wouldn’t have had if the mirror hadn’t of broken.

Looking everywhere for supplies is one thing, a thing I’ve grown accustomed to loving. But, when what you love is broken, turning it into a piece of art, and something new, can allow what is broken to evolve. When we use what is broken to create what we love, that object we used to love can become a new piece of art, or an object with a new use.

Creating use for what could be thrown out is a part of upcycling. Finding furniture at the side of the road, taking it home, and throwing a new coat of paint on it is only a fraction of what could be. Turning straws from different restaurants into necklace beads is another idea. The possibilities are endless. You can make suncatchers out of string and old DVDs or CDs. You can use beads from broken jewelry as supplies for new bracelets or necklaces. You can find old lampshades and paint them. 

The act of creation is only bound by your imagination. If you believe you can turn trash into art, then you will be. A lot of people are probably thinking, ‘But why?’ What I have to say to that is a few different things.

First of all, if you turn what you could throw away into art, you’re helping relieve the amount of trash collecting in corners and pockets on this planet. Once you turn garbage into beauty, it’s no longer garbage. It’s turned into something beneficial, as well as benefiting this globe we live on. It’s become a bit of objects that are sought after, loved, and cherished. It’s art, and someone is bound to love it. 

Second of all, what you create will be yours and only yours. No one else will have it, and no one else ever will. You’ve turned what could have been thrown out into something beautiful that no one else will ever have. That must be the biggest good impact, next to saving our planet. Having something no one else will have, or selling people objects no one else will have, and allowing these items to be special, helps continue the act of creation.

Anything can be art.

Anything can be an art supply.

Anyone can be an artist.

Once we fully realize this, turning trash into art can become a necessity. Seeing what no one else sees in an object is one of the most important parts of being an artist. Finding solutions to problems no one else sees as problems is another key part of being an artist. We create solutions as inventors of beauty, or horror, or whoever we want to be. Creating solutions for problems the world didn’t know it had is what the act of art is about. 

Engineering is an art, and engineering art is also an art.

Turning trash into treasure is the act of engineering the world’s garbage into the world’s solution, and, remembering that can allow you to save the world through the act of creation.