"Trashformation 2012"

For some years now the Aurora Arts Society has organized a "Trashformation" category for its annual late-September Arts Week. To qualify, entries are to be at least 80% recycled materials; of course it's common knowledge, although not stated in the rules, that materials found in The Dump count higher on the recycling scale than others. Other approbated sources include the thrift store run by the Salvation Army, and somewhat below that, garage sales. A challenge - I've always liked a challenge! though my materials did not come from The Dump, at least not this year. But they were recycled!

To start, I took a bed sheet of lovely cotton sateen that had, unfortunately, worn a hole some years ago already:

Next I added some other parts: a dress that had gotten too small and out of style, a man's Thai silk shirt given to me with the buttons ruthlessly ripped off, an old silk shirt of my own that had acquired indelible pen marks over the years:

Buttons - what to do for buttons? I checked the buttons I had bought at an auction in Calgary some years ago...

My inspiration was the scene in Gone with the Wind in which Scarlett O'Hara, after the Civil War has taken just about everything from her, looks about for an outfit in which to charm Rhett Butler ... and her eyes fall on the living room drapes, green print as I recall. My Trashformation piece is therefore fittingly called:

"Scarlett's Pride" (front and back views)
 

The entries - all 21 of them - were rather amazing. Without doing justice to the pieces, my pictures give a decent impression of the inventiveness of my fellow Yellowknifers. Samples: a bicycle, a political piece mocking Harper's theatrical trips north to shake hands and do little positive for northerners, a mannequin turned garden piece through tiling...

My friend Karen Gelderman - yes, Rosalie's sister, the Rosalie who drove up here with me - did an altered book of memorabilia her grandmother had kept of her granddaughter, including a "Calvinette" badge (my goodness, does that bring back memories of a life left far, far behind):

 

Along with the Trashformation show was also a members' show - more on that in the next blog entry.

Of course I'm already thinking about next year's Trashformation - more trips to The Dump, perhaps?