Upcycled artists turn old into new, 21st-century style

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It’s a brisk winter morning, and Janessa Scott is disemboweling a mattress in her garage in Madrid. Scott will get rid of the stuffing, and use the springs to make wreaths, which she’ll decorate with homemade flowers:

"This one’s a telephone book that I dyed and made into flowers…and these are soda can roses that I spray painted gold."

Scott sells her wreaths under the name “The Mad Recycler.” She says she’s always been crafty. But upcycling is a challenge:

"If I can take something like the phone book and the soda can and make them into something beautiful. I think it’s a great feeling and accomplishment. And also it’s great to show people what they’re throwing away."

Wayne Brown, of Lisbon, isn’t a fan of throwing stuff away either. He makes huge, crazy sculptures of birds, insects and other creatures out of old metal farm tools, engines and other things he finds around.

Brown shows me around his land. It’s covered with his work—like a seagull made from pliers, a workout weight, and a hay rake.

"This bird reminds me of the laughing gulls, I lived in Florida for a while and the gulls on the beach sometimes they throw their heads back and it sounds like they’re laughing."

The land is also littered with Brown’s artistic materials: Including a couple of tractors, an old Jeep, probably a hundred horseshoes, and some unnerving-looking, sharp, rusty things I really just can’t place.

"Too much stuff according to my wife and son, they don’t appreciate my piles of metal…"

But he says in a way that he’s rescuing that junk:

"I finally decided if I don’t get them, they’re not coming back around. These two scythes right here, if I hadn’t gotten them they would have ended up in a dumpster in Syracuse waiting to get melted down."

Brown also sometimes trades old farm implements with his Amish neighbors.

He sells his pieces under the name Tired Iron Sculptures, at galleries. He says he sells the most in tourist areas, like the Thousand Islands and Adirondacks. 

Neither Brown nor Janessa Scott is depending on upcycling to earn them a living; Brown is a barber and Scott is a web designer. But they’d both like to make at least some kind of profit from their work.

In a spread-out area like this one, that can pose special problems. There are lots of local diners, post offices and corner stores here where people get together and chat. But Janessa Scott says there aren’t many places where the region as a whole can connect.

"It is very hard to find any resources on when the shows are, where they area, especially online which you’d think would be the best place to have them."

So Scott is trying to create a place where North Country artists can exchange information, advertise, and sell their work.

She started the online community, Uniquely Northern New York, late last year. The site allows artists to create profiles and link to their online shops, and lists bricks-and-mortar places artists sell their work in the North Country.

"So that end users can come and check that out, and say I really like that, I can run over and get this from this person, or I can see they’ll be at this show. So basically it’s like advanced publicity."

Another way artists who use upcycled materials can sell their work, is by making sure people know it’s upcycled.

Hillary Oak is executive director of the St. Lawrence County Arts Council…which provides professional development services for artists, and has a gallery space and a big shop in Potsdam.

She says people are excited about the idea of buying something that’s been repurposed:

"And it just adds a little kind of tradition and a little story to what the itemis made with. I think customers really like the idea they’re able to give a gift that has this other purpose…of recycling materials."

Last fall, Janessa Scott used her newfound contacts in the world of North Country artists to organize a new crafts fair in the area, it was all upcycled.

Wayne Brown was there, and he says he had a great time:

"Misery loves company…no seriously, it’s great to meet different people who are doing this. Any show is fun to go to, but the upcycling is neat because you get to see, wow, why didn’t I think of that!"

And Hillary Oak says making connections, whether at a show or online, is always a good thing.

"When artists see what othe artists are doing, when they get together and talk and share ideas and techniques, everyone wins."

Technology is sometimes viewed as the enemy of tradition, but in this case, it’s an enabler. Upcyclers in the North Country create work that looks dramatically different from what we might think of as traditional art. But it draws on the traditional habit of reusing old and well-loved things for new purposes.

And the community building Scott’s trying to do on the internet is similar. It doesn’t exactly look like what we think of as a traditional community, but in a way she’s upcycling the concept.