Recycling/Repurposing
I’m a big fan of using recycled bulk materials or pieces and parts that were designed for one use, then reused as is, but in a totally different way. The steampunk zeppelin here uses both. The “inflatable” portion of the sculpture is papier mache, and therefore recycles newspaper and cardboard, whereas the gondola portion uses both mache and repurposed plastic pieces and parts from my kids’ old toys, as well as packaging pieces, caps and old wire. Even the propeller on the zeppelin is old wooden parts of toys, as well as paperboard and plastic pieces that were salvaged. I’ve always been interested in taking materials that would otherwise have been thrown away and kept them out of the landfill by making pieces of beautiful art from them. For me, this makes my projects twice as satisfying!
The picture shows a close up of the gondola of my Steampunk Zeppelin. If you look closely, you can see that the pieces on it are made of plastic and cardboard and wire that I saved. These are things that would have otherwise been thrown in the trash!