Arty Girlz Recycle Challenge: Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention

Recycle is my middle name! In fact, if you look up recycle in the dictionary, you will see a picture of me getting out of a car to scavenge items that have been put out for trash. My children were trained at an early age to leap from a moving vehicle, shove curbside art into the trunk, and jump back in, before the car ever rolled to a halt, thus avoiding public humiliation by any friends that might happen upon the scene and see them foraging through garbage piles.

I can remember being about 8 yrs. old and desperately wanting to create art, but not having any supplies, so I collected bits of colored glass out of the street to make a mosaic on cardboard. About 80 % of my home is furnished in Cousin Mae's hand-me-downs, road-kill, flea market finds, and Salvation Army purchases, repainted, recovered, and revamped. Ava here, not to be confused with my sister Ava, is an "original sculpture" created from a wig stand I begged from the drama teacher at my school. I must confess that I was inspired by one similar that I saw in Domino magazine last month.

For more recycled treasures, check out my Flickr or scroll down a little bit to see photos of my attic studio. Almost nothing is new: the Queen of Mardi Gras lamp was once covered with Mallard ducks, the roll-top desk was my son's and was stained oak until 2 weeks ago, shelving came from flea markets, and my art table began life plain brown in my husband's accounting office!

Thanks so much for this challenge, Arty Girlz
http://www.artygirlzchallengeblog.blogspot.com/