Etsy Tuesdays: Tracy Borders

Hey folks, today is the first installment of a series of etsy sellers, all working in the Puget Sound area.  If you live around here, this is going to be a great opportunity to see all the creativity going on here!  If not, well, I'd love to hear about the creative people where you live.

Today's artist is Tracy Borders.  She has an Etsy shop Squigglechick and a blog by the same name.  They're definitely worth checking out!  Here's her story: "I’m a fiber/mixed media artist, who hopes to eventually kick that 'office day job' and become a full-time self-supporting artist. Until then, all of my spare moments are devoted to creating my art.

My first love is fiber dyeing. I love getting my hands on any natural fibers such as bamboo, cotton or paper & turning them into deep jewel tone colors.

My repurposed art developed from a sailing trip my husband & I took, May 2009, around the Croatian Islands. When we would sail into port, we’d stop at the markets to purchase food for that evening & the next day’s sail. In those Croatian markets, the opportunities for junk food were very minimal, there were only 2 options for "crisps" not 20, so we ate a lot of those chips on our trip.

The artist in me decided to keep those empty bags & that “surely, I could do something with them & create a souvenir from the trip.” After I created a quilt block for the wall, I then questioned, “what about a handbag or a wallet”? Then I realized, “what about all of those candy wrappers, chip bags, soda bottle & beer labels that we toss into the garbage every day?” With that, my repurposed art line developed!

I am fortunate to have old and newly found friends from the United States to Europe save and send me their crisp (chip) bags, their soda & beer labels, which gives me the opportunity to work with materials that I would normally not have access to.  Through these old and new friends, I share materials that I don’t use.  I send my bottle caps to an artist who use them to create bottle cap jewelry, those cardboard 6-packs that beer come in are sent to another artist who creates hand bags and wearable art and the soda/beer/wine bottles get recycled or given to a home brewer to reuse.  I try very hard to not let anything go to waste.

I’ve also had the opportunity to work with a few breweries, wineries & cider companies from the east to west coast.  My repurposed “beer art” was recently published in a national beer magazine, DRAFT and from that publication I received orders from breweries & cider companies excited in seeing their beer, cider & wine labels used in my repurposed art.

I’ve have to admit, that yes, I’ve bought beer because of the cool labels and we might eat a little bit more junk food because I need to create a certain item from certain labels, however, it’s made me more aware of what is tossed aside as garbage that can be reused.  That Diet Coke bottle, I see lying in the street, gets picked up, the label used, by me, in my work and that bottle, recycled.  So, the next time you eat that bag of chips or see an empty soda bottle in the garbage can instead of the recycle bin, think of me and at what I’m trying to do to reduce the waste."

 

Posted via email from Earmarks