One person’s junk is another person’s treasure. That saying has been taken to heart by these creative individuals, who have turned discarded items into works of art?and even places to live. This week, It’s all about seeing the potential in somebody else’s trash.
Leo Sewell collects odds and ends from rubbish dumps around his native Philadelphia, but what he turns them into is far from trash. His artworks have been featured on kids? TV shows and in museums, and Hollywood stars have even been known to snap them up.
Michael Reynolds is an architect but the homes he creates are far from typical. Instead, he transforms garbage into ??earthships??eco-friendly homes with surprisingly pleasing aesthetics and tiny (or nonexistent) power bills.?
Some people might say It’s impossible to meet modern building codes using ?materials [that] are salvaged from other construction projects, hauled out of trash heaps or just picked up from the side of the road.? They’ve probably never met Dan Phillips, who does exactly that with his Texas construction company, Phoenix Commotion.
The Smart Art Competition invites artists to get creative with discarded materials. From suitcases converted into speaker boxes, to a gown made of cast-off Crown Royal liquor bags, this slide show reveals just how fine the line is between what’s considered art and trash.
Clothing made of used cigarette butts? It might sound like a crazy idea, but Chilean designer Alexandra Guerrero has turned it into reality through the Mantis Project. After being cleaned, rinsed, and dried, the butts are shredded ?to create a wool-like material.? With some 4.3 trillion cigarette butts discarded every year, it might not be such a crazy idea after all.