SALVAGE – Details, episodes & analysis

Please enjoy my conversation with Aurora Robson. 

Aurora is a visual artist predominantly known for working with plastic waste. She was born in Toronto, grew up in Hawaii, and later lived in New York City, where she studied structural metal welding (she is a NYS Certified Structural Welder!) and worked in film, construction and entertainment.  She studied art history and visual art at Columbia University.

Throughout her career, Aurora has developed many ways to sculpt with plastic debris, including fastening, weaving, sewing, ultrasonic welding, injection welding and 3-D printing. She shares these methods with others who want to reduce and transform plastic waste. Aurora has received several awards, including the Pollock-Krasner Grant and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. She also founded Project Vortex, a global collective of artists and designers working with plastic debris. Currently, Aurora lives in the Hudson Valley with her family, cats, garden, fruit trees, and a very expressive dog.

She says that her practice is a form of serious play. Aurora works in a variety of mediums, but have dedicated the majority of the past twenty years to working with post-consumer and post-industrial plastic aka plastic pollution. In order to maintain her creative rational optimism, play is essential, but her work is also a meditative exercise in subjugating negativity and a practice of radical acceptance. 

https://www.aurorarobson.com/ 

https://www.instagram.com/aurorarobson/?hl=en 

https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/katy-hessel-podcast

https://meatpacking-district.com/

https://beaconscloset.com/

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-if-we-get-it-right/id1773809532

https://www.projectvortex.org/

https://ecoartspace.org/

This podcast was created by Natalya Khorover. It was produced and recorded by Natalya, as well as researched and edited by her. SALVAGE is a product of ECOLOOP.ART.

If you enjoy this show, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening—and be sure to come back for another conversation with a repurposed media artist.

Music theme by RC Guida

Visit Natalya’s website at www.artbynatalya.com

Visit Natalya’s community at www.repurposercollective.com

Visit Natalya’s workshops at https://www.ecoloop.art/

Please enjoy my conversation with Jackie Wolf-Schmidt. Jackie Schmidt is a found materials fashion designer and shoe creator from Los Angeles, California. She received her BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology, focusing on creating sustainable pieces with materials such as aluminum cans, bottle caps, plastic bags, belts, and many more found objects. She then transforms the materials into wearable art pieces, filled with lots of color and fun textures that will make heads turn when entering into a room.

https://www.jwolfschmidt.com/
https://www.instagram.com/jwolfschmidt/#

Art Institute of Chicago https://www.artic.edu/

Fashion Institute of Technology https://www.fitnyc.edu/

Deadstock Fabric https://goodonyou.eco/brands-using-leftover-fabric/

https://www.plasticshed.org/

Paco Rabanne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paco_Rabanne

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinky_Dinks 

This podcast was created by Natalya Khorover. It was produced and recorded by Natalya, as well as researched and edited by her. SALVAGE is a product of ECOLOOP.ART.

If you enjoy this show, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening—and be sure to come back for another conversation with a repurposed media artist.

Music theme by RC Guida

Visit Natalya’s website at www.artbynatalya.com

Visit Natalya’s community at www.repurposercollective.com

Visit Natalya’s workshops at https://www.ecoloop.art/

Please enjoy my conversation with Meredith Andrews aka Plastic Mermade.

 Contemporary portrait, travel and lifestyle photographer Meredith Andrews has shot for editorial, advertising and private clients all over the world. Based on the sub tropical island of Bermuda, where she finds much of her inspiration. 

Her work can be seen in almost every medium including dozens of international exhibitions such as the 2009 and 2019 Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize at National Portrait Gallery in London, UK, Portrait of Humanity 2020, OpenWalls Arles 2020, the Copenhagen Photo Festival, a solo show at the Bermuda National Gallery in 2021, a silver winner of the Association of Photographers awards, the BJP International Photography Award, the Royal Photographic Society International exhibition and the PHOTO IS:REAL Festival all in 2022. 

Most recently Meredith’s work was exhibited at the Women Street Photographers exhibition in NYC, Miami Art Week and Apollo’s Decathlon, Paris 2024 Cultural Olympiad at Château de Montsoreau in France.

https://meredithandrewsphotography.com/ 

https://www.instagram.com/meredithphoto 

https://www.instagram.com/plastic_mermade 

https://www.gold.ac.uk/

https://www.uwcatlantic.org/

https://www.mcgill.ca/

https://www.marimekko.com/us_en

Bermuda National Gallery https://bng.bm/  https://bng.bm/a-collector-at-heart/ 

Documentary about Meredith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aktHI8iZiA0&t=387s

Keep Bermuda Beautiful https://www.kbb.bm/

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, author All We Can Save and What If We Get It Right? https://www.ayanaelizabeth.com/ 

Sam Bentley Good News https://www.youtube.com/@itsSamBentley

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/whimsical-legos-are-still-washing-ashore-decades-after-they-were-lost-at-sea-180979580/ 

This podcast was created by Natalya Khorover. It was produced and recorded by Natalya, as well as researched and edited by her. SALVAGE is a product of ECOLOOP.ART.

If you enjoy this show, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening—and be sure to come back for another conversation with a repurposed media artist.

Music theme by RC Guida

Visit Natalya’s website at www.artbynatalya.com

Visit Natalya’s community at www.repurposercollective.com

Visit Natalya’s workshops at https://www.ecoloop.art/

Please enjoy my conversation with Nat Kalbach. Nathalie is a self-taught mixed media artist, writer, and advocate for historic preservation, whose vibrant works explore urban subject matter through a fusion of paint mediums and collage materials. Her unconventional path into the art world began as a sanctuary from her former role as a paralegal, where she discovered the transformative power of art as a means of storytelling and personal expression.

Nat finds inspiration in the ever-changing dynamics of city life, particularly in the urban subject matter that surrounds her. She connects deeply with the spaces she lives in by not only exploring the visual aspects but also by researching the history and the stories that unfold within the buildings and structures that populate the cityscape. 

https://www.natkalbach.com/ 

​​https://www.instagram.com/natkalbach/ 

https://natkalbach.substack.com/ 

https://www.natkalbach.com/podcast 

Plant based acrylic paint https://www.placrylic.com/home

Liquitex bio-based acrylic paint https://www.liquitex.com/

Jimmy Leslie, Nat’s mentor https://jimmyleslieart.com/

Artful Adventures in Mixed Media https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/633752/artful-adventures-in-mixed-media-by-nathalie-kalbach/ 

This podcast was created by Natalya Khorover. It was produced and recorded by Natalya, as well as researched and edited by her. SALVAGE is a product of ECOLOOP.ART.

If you enjoy this show, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening—and be sure to come back for another conversation with a repurposed media artist.

Music theme by RC Guida

Visit Natalya’s website at www.artbynatalya.com

Visit Natalya’s community at www.repurposercollective.com

Visit Natalya’s workshops at https://www.ecoloop.art/

Please enjoy my conversation with kHyal. Complex, and unclassifiable, kHyal’s mixed media work riffs off of pop culture icons and performs like a Rorschach Test in a behavioral science lab, tugging at the neurons of each viewer, and born to challenge perceptions. Using ordinary objects snatched from dumpsters, recycle centers, flea markets, tag sales, thrift stores, the ocean and the street — assembled with raw precision in a dazzling cacophony of visual clutter — each piece decidedly explodes the human-centric flaws, foibles and sometimes tragic outcomes of a plastic society.

https://khyal.net/ 

https://getfizz.com/ 

https://www.soundlycaring.com/ 

https://goodwilloutlets.com/

https://www.beyondplastics.org/

This podcast was created by Natalya Khorover. It was produced and recorded by Natalya, as well as researched and edited by her. SALVAGE is a product of ECOLOOP.ART.

If you enjoy this show, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening—and be sure to come back for another conversation with a repurposed media artist.

Music theme by RC Guida

Visit Natalya’s website at www.artbynatalya.com

Visit Natalya’s community at www.repurposercollective.com

Visit Natalya’s workshops at https://www.ecoloop.art/

Please enjoy my conversation with Amy Orr. Amy is a multimedia artist whose work often involves the reinvention of manufactured materials; plastic and plastic cards in particular. The understanding and perception of plastic and ephemera is changing quickly. Where Amy’s work was once a lighthearted narrative about consumerism and culture, it is now overshadowed by the environmental disaster that our single-use practice has caused.

Amy is drawn to materials for their color, abundance and original intent. Whether constructing a patterned composition or figurative mosaic, the plastic fragments become a sparkling wasteland of personal histories and common stories. With a background in textiles, Amy’s work can be understood with references to the crazy quilt, in which fabric scraps are pieced together to create a whole cloth that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Previously a tenured professor, administrator, designer, and art publication editor, Amy Orr is now a studio and street artist.

https://www.amyorr.net/ 

https://www.inliquid.org/artist/orr-amy 

https://www.instagram.com/amyorrwhat/?hl=en

https://www.saqa.com/

https://metrophiladelphia.com/snyderman-works-galleries-to-close-after-52-years/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drill_press

https://plaidonline.com/mod-podge

Church of the Heavenly Rest exhibit https://pdflink.to/cc3a3579/ 

This podcast was created by Natalya Khorover. It was produced and recorded by Natalya, as well as researched and edited by her. SALVAGE is a product of ECOLOOP.ART.

If you enjoy this show, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening—and be sure to come back for another conversation with a repurposed media artist.

Music theme by RC Guida

Visit Natalya’s website at www.artbynatalya.com

Visit Natalya’s community at www.repurposercollective.com

Visit Natalya’s workshops at https://www.ecoloop.art/

Please enjoy my conversation with Robin Frohardt. ​​

Known for her rich aesthetic and highly detailed constructions, Robin Frohardt is an award-winning theater and film director. Her narrative-based film, puppetry, and sculpture, use recognizable materials, often trash, to create richly detailed worlds that make magic of the mundane and highlight the trivialities of daily life. Her theatrical work has earned her a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Creative Capital Award, and multiple Jim Henson Foundation Grants. 

Her amazing project THE PLASTIC BAG STORE premiered in Times Square in 2020 and has since toured to Los Angeles, Chicago, Adelaide, and Austin and Mass MOCA.

 https://www.robinfrohardt.com/ 

https://www.instagram.com/jawbonepuppettheater/

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/great-pacific-garbage-patch/

https://cargocollective.com/cardboardinstitute

This podcast was created by Natalya Khorover. It was produced and recorded by Natalya, as well as researched and edited by her. SALVAGE is a product of ECOLOOP.ART.

If you enjoy this show, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening—and be sure to come back for another conversation with a repurposed media artist.

Music theme by RC Guida

Visit Natalya’s website at www.artbynatalya.com

Visit Natalya’s community at www.repurposercollective.com

Visit Natalya’s workshops at https://www.ecoloop.art/

*Please note two corrections to episode 30:  Kate Dodd referenced the artwork “Tilted Arc” but incorrectly attributed it to Robert Smithson rather than its creator, Richard Serra. She also referenced an exhibit put on by Stand 4 Gallery, which is in Bay Ridge NY, rather than Bayonne, NJ.

Please enjoy my conversation with Kate Dodd. 

Kate is obsessed with excess, with the unwanted, the discarded, and the underutilized.  In her work, she seeks to repurpose items that no longer have an essential use.  Once they were manufactured in great quantities; then they were abandoned, superfluous, castoff. Kate’s starting point is the materials. She has said, “I have always had a tremendous fascination with materials and making.  So when I see materials being disposed of without much thought … I see both treasure and mistreatment, and feel an immediate need to resurrect the neglected and disrespected.”  

https://www.katedodd.com/ 

https://www.hunterdonartmuseum.org/exhibitions/kate-dodd-new-work/ 

Leticia Bajuyo episode#23 https://www.buzzsprout.com/2355491/episodes/16304746 

Bottled and Sold by Peter Gleick https://islandpress.org/books/bottled-and-sold#desc

https://www.beyondplastics.org/

https://www.aurorarobson.com/

Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilted_Arc

https://www.janestreetartcenter.com/

https://www.gardenstateartweekend.org/

https://www.montclairartmuseum.org/ 

This podcast was created by Natalya Khorover. It was produced and recorded by Natalya, as well as researched and edited by her. SALVAGE is a product of ECOLOOP.ART.

If you enjoy this show, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening—and be sure to come back for another conversation with a repurposed media artist.

Music theme by RC Guida

Visit Natalya’s website at www.artbynatalya.com

Visit Natalya’s community at www.repurposercollective.com

Visit Natalya’s workshops at https://www.ecoloop.art/

Please enjoy my conversation with Ian Trask. Ian is a sculptor and multimedia artist who transforms waste materials into objects and installations with new purpose and integrity. His immersive works often play with sophisticated patterns, lending unlikely materials exquisite beauty. At other times, he works on an intimate scale with puckish humor.

https://www.iantrask.com/ 

https://www.bonnaroo.com/

Art Under The Bridge Fest https://dumboartsfestival.com/

https://www.theinvisibledog.org/

https://massmoca.org/artist-in-residence/

https://pioneerworks.org/

https://www.bwac.org/

https://www.artichokedance.org/

Cambrian Explosion https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2019/february/the-cambrian-explosion-was-far-shorter-than-thought.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trachtenburg_Family_Slideshow_Players 

This podcast was created by Natalya Khorover. It was produced and recorded by Natalya, as well as researched and edited by her. SALVAGE is a product of ECOLOOP.ART.

If you enjoy this show, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening—and be sure to come back for another conversation with a repurposed media artist.

Music theme by RC Guida

Visit Natalya’s website at www.artbynatalya.com

Visit Natalya’s community at www.repurposercollective.com

Visit Natalya’s workshops at https://www.ecoloop.art/

Please enjoy my conversation with Lisa Barthelson. Originally a painter, Lisa currently explores and works in many media: printmaking, ceramics, photography, encaustic, site specific environmental installations/sculpture, mixed media, and found object assemblage.  She looks at everything as a potential art medium: a material to be used and transformed. From traditional art making materials: paint, pencil, printmaking ink, paper, wax and clay, to the debris we generate in the course of our daily lives and then throw out, it all excites Lisa.  

https://www.lisabarthelson.com/home 

https://www.lisabarthelson.com/large-multi-view/family-debris-series-sculpture--mixed-media/4011220-2-40142/family-debris-series-sculpture--mixed-media.html 

https://theumbrellaarts.org/ 

This podcast was created by Natalya Khorover. It was produced and recorded by Natalya, as well as researched and edited by her. SALVAGE is a product of ECOLOOP.ART.

If you enjoy this show, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening—and be sure to come back for another conversation with a repurposed media artist.

Music theme by RC Guida

Visit Natalya’s website at www.artbynatalya.com

Visit Natalya’s community at www.repurposercollective.com

Visit Natalya’s workshops at https://www.ecoloop.art/