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Portland is a hotbed for garden artists such as Gina Nash. A tin can isn't just a tin can in Nash's hands. In a flash of light, blue-hot from her blowtorch, she transforms one soup can after another into shades for string lights that will fetch about $70 from willing buyers.
A tin can here, a tin can there, and before you know it, Nash was able to buy herself a new home near Mount Tabor. There's an amazing number of local artists actually making a living selling recycled garden art. Most belong to a Portland-based group called Cracked Pots.
To Nash, recycled garden art "is another way to put your personality and taste" into your yard. Yes, you've heard it before, Nash turns trash into treasures. And she's not alone: Sixty such artists are showing their wares at a garden art show today and Wednesday at McMenamins Edgefield, 2126 S.W. Halsey St. in Troutdale. Cracked Pots collects 20 percent of the profits to teach people about the joys of recycling.
Obviously, these artists have a thing about using materials more than once. Says Nash: "I'm allowing people to see things new ways, through a more whimsical eye."
Not to mention the reaction she gets when she's Dumpster diving for future objets d'art. Nash finds herself raking though the debris.
Next thing you know, bystanders become participants, charmed by what the artist is doing; sometimes, they even help her pick out cans she's diving for.
The members of Cracked Pots pride themselves on finding junk for free, keeping it out of the landfill and then tweaking it until we fall in love with it and have to have it. Now, who's the crackpot?
Whatever your taste in garden art, there are a few things I've learned the hard way about finding the right place for what you bring home:
- Set the scene. Step back and look at the garden area or room as a scene. Use no more than one big piece of art (for example, a bench and pots) in each scene.
- Set the mood. Try to match the attitude, mood or style of your garden.
- Trust your instincts. If that piece you just love doesn't look natural in the "perfect" spot, keep moving it until it does. Experiment.
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