The Gateway Drug to Art

Fashion and recycling join forces to resurrect and inspire

The Recycle Santa Fe Arts Festival turned 18 this year, and with it came a huge assortment of fine arts created from discarded materials. A particular highlight each year is the Trash Fashion and Costume Contest, which showcases wearable recycled arts on the catwalk in a juried show (this year it was held on Dec. 2). Victorious designs are then featured in an exhibit at Winterowd Fine Art one week later at an exhibit titled Creme de la Creme.

When an SFR staffer heard about the event, she asked, "Are they going to actually be cool clothes, or, like, a bunch of old bottle caps?" This is probably close to what many of you are now thinking. It's hard to hear "recycled" and not think "trash," but that is something the festival's coordinator Sarah Pierpont wants to change.

"I really think it's one of those things that you have to come and see to believe," she says. "You look at the art and think, 'I'd like to have that in my living room,' and only when you look closer do you realize it's made of discarded materials."

Artists working in this medium are the embodiment of the age-old adage about one man's trash being another man's treasure. "Unfortunately, our society has so many things that get thrown away or recycled or that are no longer wanted," Pierpont tells SFR, "and these artists have an eye for that." One such artist recently inherited a heap of treasure in the form of a junkyard; others search roadsides and garbage bins for broken coffee mugs or discarded sheet metal.

Participating artists work in an array of mediums, resurrecting things like car door handles as intricate figures of birds, or turning discarded books into 3D sculptural figures. "It can be welding, it can be sewing or painting; a fine art painter may paint on old ceiling tiles or things from demolition waste," Pierpont notes. "There's just no limit, really."

This is how fashion blends particularly well with recycled art. As the second-most pollutive industry on the planet (right behind oil), fashion needs to turn an eye toward environmental issues. "You want to be conscientious of where materials come from, and textiles can have a pretty big social and environmental impact," Pierpont cautions. "So, greening the idea of fashion and textiles is a great part of recycled art."

This year, one contestant created a gown made completely from used postage stamps. Another designed a sundress from the heavy cardboard that covers rolls of newsprint. Someone even used torn umbrellas to fashion a garment. "There's a lot of cool fabrics," Pierpont says, "if you kind of just open your eyes to it."

Liza Doyle, a senior at Santa Fe Prep, has won the competition several times and her previous designs have graced the festival's runway since she was 6 years old. This is her 11th time designing for the show, and she says her lifelong participation has molded her into the artist she is today. "My focused interest in the arts really came from this show," Doyle says. "Every year I had this event to look forward to, and it kept me thinking about designing all year long."

Doyle also paints, draws and regularly designs her own non-recycled garments, yet she has an affinity for salvaged fashion. "I love that the materials are found and that they have been forgotten," she says. "It gives you a chance to evaluate the story that each of those materials tells, and that really influences what kind of dress I make out of them."

As for Pierpont, she likes that the fashion show component attracts budding artists. "I think it's especially great for young and emerging artists," she says. "It can be a way to start. … They are interested in fashion, whether it's designing stuff or putting things together—it can happen in a lot of different ways, and it may be their gateway drug to art."

Creme de la Creme
4-6:30 pm Friday, Dec. 9. Free.
Winterowd Fine Art,
701 Canyon Road,
992-8878

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