Recycled decor a la naturale

Driftwood Garden Sign by Cher's Passion

Most of us equate recycling with plastic, paper, cardboard, metal and glass. It's important that these materials be reused whenever possible to help curb society's insatiable need for product packaging. But what about nature's "waste"?

For one thing, there is already inherant beauty in most of what nature disposes of. Driftwood, rock fragments, fossils, nutshells (natures idea of "product packaging") and the like.

Artists with an "earthy eye" can highlight that beauty with color and composition to create fabulous recycled art for your home and garden. From sparkling garden signs and yarn embellished driftwood plaques to colorful fish and more.

Sunrise at Sea from ReLove

Cherri of Cher's Passion dabs bits of color and light into the surface of a piece of driftwood with colored glass, combining the brilliance of the sun and the dry, mottled surface of the wood to create Rain, a naturally "lighted" garden sign.

Some of the loveliest natural recycled art to be found makes use of color and composition to work with natural materials, bringing out intricate detail. These pieces make fascinating objects to ponder as the elements "refer" to each other and wake up the mind to patterns and relationships bewtween the worlds of nature and humankind.

In Sunrise at Sea by ReLove, tiny nails adhere straight lines of blue and yellow to a piece of wood, bending the distinction between lines and curves in something like an optical illusion.

Equally intriguing is the concept of working against a natural object to make use of form and shape. Pointing out relationships between the medium and the subject in a more subliminal fashion.

Catch Me If You Can from Into the Trees

With Catch Me If You Can, Janet of Into the Trees masks the identity of her base material with a brightly colored, animated fish to focus on the form and movement of an elegantly shaped dried palm frond.

People have been collecting pretty rocks and driftwood for centuries to enhance their gardens, sitting areas and drives. Nature loving artists add a bit of "this and that" to enhance the beauty and keep us closer to Mother Nature.

These artists show that there is beauty in anything we might mindlessly throw away, if only we're willing to look just a little bit closer...

For more info: Earth911, HauteNature
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