Recycled Arts & Crafts Contest 2021
The Second Annual Brisbane Recycled Arts & Crafts Contest came to a close with roughly 20 submissions. Projects were judged on their creativity and material use by sustainability and Parks and Rec staff from the City and SSF Scavenger Company, as well as last year’s grand prize winner and Parks and Rec Commissioner Leesa Greenlee.
Barbara Ebel’s “Pumpkin King” was selected as the 1st Place winner. Judges felt the piece was creative, well-crafted, and very resourceful with an array of materials reused, saying "it's much better than something store bought, and is a good alternative for seasonal decorations."
Receiving 2nd Place was Cindy Rudolph’s “Wall Hanging”, a beautiful and well-executed piece, with judges noting that textile scraps are often difficult to recycle.
Dana Dillworth’s “Small Images” were selected as 3rd Place winner as judges appreciated the "fun use of hard to recycle items" as a good way to keep items in circulation rather than the landfill.
A Youth Award was given to Silvio Santana for his “wind chimes” which embodied the spirit and intention of the contest. As he explained:
“While making my art piece, I had the recent California wildfires in mind. The wood serves as a symbol of the land and wildlife that has been affected. Wind is often a deciding factor in the course of these fires, so I thought a wind chime was appropriate. The keys represent all that has been lost…”
Two Honorable Mentions were also recognized, the first was Luis Logon’s “Things Made of Waste” bench utilizing treated wood waste, which is very difficult to properly dispose of.
The second Honorable Mention was the Coriano family’s “ALL CAPS” which involved a thoughtful family exercise of collecting and recognizing the amount of single-use containers, by way of their caps, over a short time and representing it with artwork.
This year’s contest also attracted international participation from India! Raiganj Ramchandra submitted several very intricate projects and has already received several awards in his home country. While not eligible for our contest awards, we appreciated his participation and hope his projects can both inspire future project ideas here in Brisbane as well as highlight the global challenge of excess waste.
Thanks to everyone that participated in this year’s contest and congratulations to all the awardees! To the rest of the community--take a good look at your trash over the next several months and you too may find that there are treasures to be created. We look forward to seeing them next year!
