We have received 56 fabulous entries in our 2nd annual Found Objects…Found Art Contest – with prizes from Satellite and Schiffer Books – and with submissions from Australia, Puerto Rico, Canada and the U.S. Cool, huh! Rather than take two full months to get through them one at a time, I think it makes sense to do a little blitz for the next 10 days – we’ll do three a day…starting today… in the straightforward order that they came in. Then…
The second step: Will be to narrow the field to 10 semifinalists. To help, I’ve asked Femme1 aka Deb – last year’s contest winner – to choose the semifinalists, based on originality and the written submission. She has an impossible task, really – because all of the entries are so heart felt. Cliche time: Everyone is a winner, you know it!
About Feb. 10 (if I have my timing right): We will put all the semifinalists on one Contest page – and over the course of one week, vote.
Again: Wow, these are wonderful! Oh, and there’s already an idea for a whole new, ongoing Photo Gallery: Dumpster Divers United. Everything we find and save in dumpsters. Don’t send me your pics yet – but get ready. MANY MANY THANKS to everyone for your enthusiastic participation in this contest. I hope you are enjoying the entries as much as I am.
atomicbowler says
EEEwwwww! Cootie Bugs!
I made it through my two children (14 and 23) both being small and even one having head lice without getting them myself.
The critters rip thru the elementary schools like outbreak, right? So, this year, Laura’s 10 year old son brings them home. His sister got ’em…I got ’em…Laura got ’em…we all got ’em…TWICE!
I have never done so much laundry in so little time all of my life. That lice-killer (that they are resistant to) is a deadly pesticide that stays in the kids’ hair and on their scalp for some time…and doesn’t always work. The second time, I resorted to the old seagoing method, which is kerosene. We all smelled like an old galley stove, and the master bath reeked for weeks…but they stayed gone.
Sorry to go so far off-topic, but the minute I read about cooties I immediately started itching! Yetch!
I did also once get a full-on flea infestation from a very clean and spiffy new matress that some folks who were moving set out for free…in the grass…in the spring. Of all the things I’m good wioth for free, I really don’t like beds or couches no matter how nice unless I KNEW the people who had used it. Yep, Mr. Shipwright, Mr. Fish Hold Rebuilder, Mr. Downflooding Fishboat Bilge Swimmer Leak Detective…Is squeamish as all get out. Yep. 🙂
Dave
Femme1 says
Dave, what a fantastic story. I love it.
My daughter (all grown up) lives in NYC, and for a long time when I’d visit her, she’d have new cool stuff to show me that she’d found sitting out on the street in front of apartment buildings. It’s been a long tradition in New York that, if someone is getting rid of a couch or other large furniture, they sit it out for other people to take. She found a gorgeous hutch with ornate drawer pulls that she painted a bright Chinese red and a glass fronted bookcase—-great stuff.
But the last time I visited I noticed nothing new; when I asked her about it, I found out that there is a tremendous outbreak of bedbugs in NYC, and that people are now afraid of bringing in furniture. Apparently the little buggers are notoriously difficult to get rid of, and you generally have to remove the infested furniture. So, at least for a while, she’s not bringing things in off the street!
atomicbowler says
I have a dumpster story…well, there are plenty, but this is my fave.
My daughter is now 14 and she HATES this story, but here goes.
Jessica has always been a save it-reuse it-make something kind of kid, and a serious saver as well. Big glass water cooler jug full of coins she started at six and won’t dump out yet, saved popsicle sticks and even packaging if she had an idea what to make with it. Came pre-programmed from birth to see waste as shameful, I guess. Takes bugs outside on paper to set them free, too.
There’s sort of an unspoken rule in boatyards and marinas that if you are throwing out something that is not truly garbage you set it NEXT TO the dumpster. More often than not it evaporates in a hurry. One day when Jess was 7 or so we were at the harbor and I was throwing out some trash. Opened the lid of the dumpster and lo and behold in the bottom (it had just been emptied earlier) there was a good quantity of teak lumber. Not little bits of offcut, I mean LUMBER! Today teak is hovering around 40.00/board ft., and it was real expensive then, too. I commented in surprise and had to explain what it was about. Jr. asked if I could reach it, and I really couldn’t. I was wearing decent clothes and did not want to hop in the bin, either. Maybe, says the child, I could lower her down in there and she could get it out “like the crane at your work”. We really couldn’t let nature go to waste that way, after all…not to mention money!
I still giggle remembering the apprehensively reproachful tone in that little-girl voice echoing from the dumpster walls as I let her down in by the ankles…”Doooon’t you DROP me!”
Dave
Maureen says
Popped by to mention that I’ve started posting photos of my partially original 1949 kitchen as a result of starting the reno contemplation process! The counters are intact…
Glamorlux Nancy says
Dumpster Divers United – what a cool idea! They recently did an Antiques Road Show where they featured only the things that people had found in dumpsters or on the curb… A few of the things were worth thousands! I like to think that I’m helping the planet when I take something out of someone’s trash pile. I mean, better that it be used than go into a landfill, right?