Make Art, Not Junk!

Rube Goldberg meets . . . Duchamp? Art made from found items: a clock from the Finger Lakes Reuse Center and a spider sculpture from Junk Yard Friends.

Duchamp did it 100 years ago, kids do it at the Sciencenter’s Reinvention Station today, and now turning castoffs into artistic creations is becoming a national trend.

Justin Whitaker, whose family founded Junk Yard Friends, makes a living at this. That’s their spider (above right) hanging on the Cayuga Street side of Handwork. The spider’s body came from a propane tank and the head of an old drain catcher. Many of their creatures were originally rakes, springs, Freon tanks, sickles, bikes, and shovels. “It’s easy to see a creature in a part,” says Whitaker.

Diane Cohen, founder of the Finger Lakes Reuse Center at the Triphammer Mall, offers a workshop there for teens on what she likes to call “creative reusing.” One student took an out-of-commission hard-drive disk and other easy-to-find parts, installed a small battery, and created a clock (above left).

Want to make something of it? Take out your trash—and get creative!

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