Trash art

You might think there’s nothing less creative than trash. But maybe you haven’t yet met Marie Kneemeyer, the Public Education Manager at Recology Sonoma Marin.

Marie’s job is to educate the community about zero waste strategies, and for her, creativity and waste management are inextricably connected. She creates what she lovingly refers to as ‘trash art’: art made from materials that would otherwise be destined for (or might have already come from) the landfill or recycling. 

Marie credits the source of her creativity to a childhood lived “with only the necessities.” She explains, “if my sisters and I wanted something fun or extra, we had to get creative and make it ourselves – usually out of repurposed materials or hand-me-downs.” This experience nurtured for Marie not just an endless resourcefulness, but also an acute awareness of her impact on the planet. She’s been blending zero waste with creativity ever since. 

“Part of being creative to me is simply challenging the status quo and thinking outside the box to solve problems,” she says. “For example, I have all this information I need to give to Recology customers. My job is to think creatively about how to utilize color, shapes, design principles, and structure to make the information exciting – so that it’s easy, maybe even fun, for people to digest. That’s what leads to habit changes, which can have a positive impact on our planet – which is very exciting to me.”

Considering Marie’s background, you might not be surprised to learn that she’s also a judge for the Community Center’s Trashion Fashion events, which celebrate the intersection between trash and design. Sonoma Valley neighbors of all ages participate by designing and creating original garments – for a Barbie reclaimed from the landfill, for a four-legged friend, or for an actual human. 

The key is that all creations are made from repurposed or recycled materials. That’s Marie’s favorite part of the event: “I love it when an outfit comes onto the catwalk and it’s such an intricate pattern that it takes me a minute to understand what material it’s made of – it’s like a mystery surprise! I also love learning the story behind certain material choices, or decisions behind how the artist used a certain technique to get it to look a certain way.”

For me, the best part of Trashion is the community. Over the past few weeks, people from all over Sonoma have been coming to our free Trashion open studios to work on their designs. Some are artists, sure. But most of them are not. They are accountants, retail workers, stay-at-home parents, students, agriculture workers, real estate agents, retired people, restaurant staff, and so on. They’re people who care enough about the environment to get involved in a fun local event – but mostly, they’re people who are willing to go out on a limb, think outside of the box, and grab an unconventional material to see what they can create with it. 

You don’t need fancy design skills to be a part of Trashion Fashion; all you need is an openness to try. I can’t put it better than Marie: “Creativity is like a muscle. Everyone has it, but sometimes people seem to think they have to be a great artist to call themselves creative. I truly think that anyone can be creative in their own way – and when that happens, it’s pure freedom.”