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Recyclables as a painting surface

To those who are interested in aluminum or other metals as a painting surface. Might I suggest using recyclables? In our town, our trash and recycling facility is open to the public and you can go and take anything you like. There is a building called "the exchange" where people drop off still-usable but unwanted items, and the trash and recyclables are in other areas. Artists can often be seen combing through the various areas (not generally the TRASH, but everything else) to find items for making art. Refridgerator and other appliance doors or many other pieces of scrap metal might make for great and unusual painting surfaces. Also scraps of lumber from building projects make not only great "canvases" but also framing. Go to your nearest dump or trash and recycling facility and see what you can find!

Dimar Allen
Artist - La Pointe, Wisconsin
2007

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Hi, Dimar. And encourage your town council and public works department to promote it! The last town I lived in did a great job at this, with hobbyists of all sorts encouraged to salvage what was salvagable. Remember that one person's trash is another person's treasure.

Unfortunately my present town posts signs that you are not allowed to remove anything from the dump, yells at you the first time you look at anything and might have you arrested the second time. They charge $3 per tire to drop them off because they're expensive to dispose of, but won't allow anyone to take one :-)

I understand "insurance regulations" and "efficiency", but insisting on landfilling something that someone else wants to put to good use should be a prosecutable environmental crime :-)

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
June 24, 2008