Entry 1: What the Trash Told Me

7/14/2025

Notes from the Balcony, Entry #1
Art is not what I make — it’s what I listen to.

Welcome to my very first blog entry. Notes from the Balcony is a series of musings and happenings, secrets made public, and overall excess I need to offload from the brain. If my life were a theater, you are the audience, invited to view from a private balcony. Sit, grab a drink. We’ll be with you shortly.

—

I didn’t start collecting junk to be trendy or cool, or even to be an environmentalist. I started because I didn’t have much of a choice.

With tall bills and kids to raise on my own (not my plan, but two abusers later…), buying expensive art supplies was out of the question. Applying for costly competitive shows was also a no (and still a no, but for other reasons). I had so little resources, I remember standing in the middle of the craft store one day, having a secret and invisible meltdown over the cost of pigments and paper.

I eventually turned to other ways of collecting art supplies: free construction materials for a sponsored outdoor project, free fabric to paint on instead of canvas, expensive rolls of paper fell away to scrap plywood from neighbors. The trash, as it turned out, was going to become my material…yes…but also my collaborator, my co-conspirator, my muse, my teacher. And when I think of all the ways Art has greeted me, I think Art also secretly lives in the trash, ready to be released like Michelangelo’s sculptures from marble. The objects also speak to me in Proustian-style whispers, unlocking past lives, memories, and energies contained in them.

I was thirsty for knowledge, too, because as it turned out information was something I could seek out for basically free, and learning would be my ladder up the hellhole that was apparently my adult life. Being an overeducated millennial with a (gasp) luxury degree in visual art, I definitely am well-trained in how to navigate the brick wall of the internet to do proper research. I also pay close attention to the environment around me, like the businesses in the town I live in. A few years ago, I think it was February 2022, I walked into what was then the Mundelein Tool Library and this guy Pete cared not one bit that I was young or female, my interest in tools and earnestness was enough to get him to demonstrate how to use some antique tools, like a hand-drill, for instance. After that day, I was hooked. They couldn’t get rid of me.

I brought them broken lamps and they taught me electrical work. I brought nothing but myself and they handed me a jigsaw and plywood and said: “cut”. Their contribution to my skillsets as an artist goes beyond what little hours I volunteered there, or what money could ever buy. And that includes the friendship, too, which feels like a second family.

Once I gained those skills, I was able to build on what I already knew and expand my material options beyond what I had ever imagined. Now I have a whole library of organized junk in the back-of-house at Sparkerland. Anyone who asks can see it.

Over the years I have learned to listen to the Art ghost voice that lives in alleyways, donation bins, and on curbsides. I’ve pulled angel wings from dumpsters (thank You for saving me) and turned old tech into stormy altars (I will always worship You). It feels like I am mending junk with gold, and this translates into my parenting and overall outlook on life. There is always a path, always a way out. I teach my kids to turn lemons into lemonade so to speak, not by preaching, but by demonstrating and trying in the first place.

So anyways, welcome to my new little surface for spreading out thoughts. I’m glad you’re here, and I hope this space feels comfortable. Remember, this is where you can find regular dispatches from the in-between — part lookout tower, part stage, part confession booth. A place for observation, reflection, and storytelling.