Distant DiscarDisco 2021: The Winter of Our Discarded Content
The WasteShed’s Second Annual Trash Fashion Show is here, and it’s looking FABULOUS.
Streaming live on Tiltify at 6pm on February 12th, our 17 artists have made silk purses out of the proverbial sow’s ears provided in their DiscarDisco Designer Boxes.
In addition to this heaping portion of talent and artistry, our online audience will have the opportunity to win these fantastic prizes in our Raffle:
RAFFLE PRIZES
All prizes except the quilt (which can ship) are available for local pickup in Chicago.
Raffle tickets are available on the Rewards tab on the DiscarDisco Tiltify Page, get em while they’re hot!
OUR FABULOUS DESIGNERS
DiscarDisco 2021 designers were challenged to make a full outfit from a box of mystery materials from The WasteShed, they documented the creative process on their social media feeds. Click through to their Instagrams to see how they did it!
See their fantastic final products on the DiscarDisco Live Stream, February 12th at 6 pm CST on Tiltify! Donate to support The WasteShed and keep Chicago’s creative juices flowing in 2021!
Object Lessons: Creative Reuse in the time of Coronavirus
Photo credit: John Morrison @localcelebrity
Coronavirus has settled in to American society, bringing hard truths to light and forcing industries to assess how they operate, for whom, and why. Creative Reuse as an industry exists in the tiniest intersection of many big overlapping circles: thrift store, craft shop, educational resource, support for underfunded schools/underpaid teachers, community-building experiment, anarchist collective, circular economic engine, nonprofit-industrial corporation, family weekend destination, climate collapse support group, and center for post-capitalist dreaming. In this intersection, we continuously recombine ideas, ideologies, communities, and aesthetics; we pull apart our own preconceptions and make new discoveries; we get down to brass tacks. A creative reuse center is simultaneously absurd, beautiful, gross, and terrifically life-affirming. We mine the dying world for the materials to build a new one, and we bring everyone along with us: absolutely every person that we can reach.
Another head of a creative reuse center, with whom I share a lot of practical and political perspectives, independently came to the same conclusion about their organization that I did about mine: everything that makes a creative reuse center work and flourish, makes it dangerous and nearly impossible under COVID.
This is not to say that there aren't many, many entries in the "now more than ever" file. Our Humboldt Park neighborhood has already suffered devastating personal and economic losses. Parents are faced with having to entertain and educate their offspring while working, or with greatly impacted incomes. Artists have seen their shows cancelled, day jobs dissolved, and opportunities evaporated. People stuck at home and consumed by grief or anxiety need activities that provide some sense of control and satisfaction, or could be turned into a little more income; affordable creative materials are no substitute for mental health services or a social safety net, but they're what we have. Kids still need to learn that objects don't have fixed purposes, trajectories, or expiration dates, and that all our destinies are unwritten. The planet is not heating any slower, and it remains urgent to create modes of consumption that move away from linear, extractive practices and towards a realization of the full potential of existing resources. These must now, however, be weighed against the potential loss of human life. The very things that made us thrive now threaten our existence.
These are salient characteristics of our business model:
We are, above all, a community place. People come to The WasteShed to hang out, they bring their friends and their families. Small children with runny noses run amok with fistfuls of bottlecaps, elders pull up folding chairs to go through the sewing patterns. Friendships and collaborations form over darkroom supplies, mother of pearl buttons and weathered road maps. Folks drop by sometimes weekly, look at everything, dig through everything, touch everything, ask a lot of good questions. Many of our regulars are older people, people of color and folks who don't speak a lot of English; many are at higher risk for COVID and many would find safeguards like an online appointment system hard to navigate. When people come to see us, sometimes they have a supply list or a goal in mind, but more often they come to learn by looking. Once they have finished looking (our average customer visit, even now, is 25 minutes), their average purchase is $12.
All these things are wonderful during normal circumstances. All of them now put our staff and the community at greater risk of contracting a deadly disease. The newest findings about the role of aerosols in COVID transmission only confirms what we suspected; our inspiration could mean someone's expiration. Trying to launch "safer" versions of our normal operations would make it impossible for us to earn enough to support our mission in a meaningful way. We are not in the same category as the most high-transmission industries, like meatpacking, but there still no way to make our space safe for our regular customer use.
With summer ending, it feels like almost every establishment that is not legally barred from reopening is open for regular hours. Plastic sheets and barriers abound, lines form down the sidewalk, and tape on the floor attempts to mitigate risk by directing traffic. Businesses closed in March because they were ordered to, and because the people who worked there were afraid of getting sick and spreading disease to their loved ones. The threat is still here, but the bone-grinding logic of capitalism has reasserted itself. Businesses that could afford to stay closed for two months could not afford to stay closed for five, and their workers can't afford to quit and stay home. The grocery worker and postal worker were hailed as heroes for continuing to work when our city had 12 new cases a day. The same accolades are conspicuously absent for the barber, the florist, and the donut shop cashier now that all (besides the virtual Chosen) are waiting for their turn to be among Illinois' daily 2,000 new positive tests. Somehow, we as a society have justified and normalized this massacre of our neighbors, mostly working class Black and brown people. We have decided that it's the cost of doing business, and the people in the greatest danger have been forced to fall in line or lose their livelihoods.
The movement for Degrowth teaches us that economic activity is not a good thing in itself; our dogged pursuit of More and Bigger and Newer has left us with a planet that is almost uninhabitable, and a population crushed and disempowered by greed, debt and inhumane wages. Reuse positions itself as an alternative to this insatiable churn: a way to honor the materials, energy, and labor that went into creating our absurdly, dangerously abundant material world. There are not enough of these alternatives around, and we are really, really going to need them in the world that's coming. But keeping reuse organizations open is not more important than risking a human life. In this period of history, there is an abundance of things worth dying for: dismantling white supremacy, caring for the ailing, providing lifesaving resources to the unhoused and impoverished, etc. Reselling used arts and craft supplies is not among these things.
We will continue to run our weekend sidewalk sales while the weather permits, but we will not be returning to regular hours this winter; there is no way to make it safe. Not many people are in the position to make this decision, but we hope that more who can, do, and that their communities come together to support them. We will continue to work behind closed doors to keep our community connected virtually and supplied materially, and taking orders for pickup and delivery. We will not allow profit or peer pressure to dictate the terms of our reopening. It is a cliché for small businesses to say they “love their customers.” This could not be more true for anyone than is for us, but love requires strong boundaries, and these are ours. Much love to our awesome staff and board for all their work on making this possible.
It feels strange to raise funds to do less, but after 6 years of working beyond our capacity and continuously innovating around programming, messaging, and getting materials to people that need it, it also feels healthy and necessary. We’ve redistributed over $1.2 million worth of materials, and when it’s safer again we’ll get right back to it. Your tax-deductible donation will help us bounce back in the spring, better than ever and ready to make the most of whatever comes next.
Donate via Paypal, or email us for other ways to support.
Thank you so much, for everything.
Eleanor Ray
Founder and Executive Director
The WasteShed
Sponsor a Teacher this Giving Season!
Join us in enriching Chicago classrooms this giving season!
Join us Dec. 3rd in launching our Sponsor a Teacher fundraiser this #GivingTuesday!
This year we are asking the public to donate a recurring $25 dollars to symbolically sponsor a teacher.
Why $25?
Based on their own estimations, Chicago educators utilize about $25 worth of FREE materials from The WasteShed's "Free to Teachers" section every time they visit, with each teacher averaging one visit per month.
We have estimated that The WasteShed gives away $1,300 of post consumer materials to about 50 teachers every month!
While we love offering these free materials to educators, it is not without its costs. Our staff and volunteers routinely sort, organize, and reorganize our "Free to Teachers" section because we believe in offering an accessible, easy-to-shop experience... whether you pay for it or not.
To help cover our overhead costs and the resources we devote to our amazing educators, we are asking for YOUR help.
We have set an ambitious goal to raise $15,000 before the new year for our Chicago teachers and educators. While recurring donations are preferred, contributions of any size will go a long way in a teachers classroom.
So mark your calendars and be ready to open your hearts (and wallets) this #GivingTuesday ♥
$100 - 4 teachers
$500 - 20 teachers
$1,000 - 40 teachers
$2,500 - 100 teachers
$5,000 - 200 teachers
$7,500 - 300 teachers
$10,000 - 400 teachers
$12,500 - 500 teachers
$15,000 - 600 teachers
$300 - Covers 1 Chicago teacher for a year!
DONATE TODAY! <— click here :)
♥♥♥♥♥
GivingTuesday is a global day of giving fueled by the power of social media and collaboration.
Celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving (in the U.S.) and the widely recognized shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday, GivingTuesday kicks off the charitable season, when many focus on their holiday and end-of-year giving.
2018 Year in Review
2018 was quite the year…
In 2018, we diverted 33,593 pounds of reusable materials from the Chicago wastestream. That’s roughly 2.5 T-Rex dinosaurs (or one T-Rex family)! It’s also equivalent to a year’s worth of 20 Americans’ personal trash, so think about that…
Keep on reading for our other program highlights and accomplishments in 2018, including:
- Woke and Winning Workshops
- Creative Reuse and Entrepreneurship Youth Program with Chicago Patchwork Farms
-Teachers Resource Project
- Glass Case Gallery
- #FutureSelf Workshop at the MCA
and more!
33,593 pounds in 2018! This year alone we took in 44% of our TOTAL materials donations EVER. Many thanks to our 4 incredible staff and many fabulous volunteers for making this possible.
Many thanks to all of the folks who worked so hard to bring the the 2018 Woke and Winning Youth Action Summer Workshop Series together. Each workshop gave youth and emerging artists, 16-25 years old, the opportunity to learn from local and national activists in the fight against gun violence, and to transform their knowledge into art projects for social justice.
Over multiple sessions we introduced youth to various organizations that use their platforms to promote gun reform. The second half of each workshop offered emerging artists a master art class with our Education Coordinator, Liz Gomez, and a concluding Art-Making for Awareness studio project meant to connect participants to the broader community.
Designed by The National Youth Art Movement Against Gun Violence (NYAM), these workshops featured speakers from these amazing organizations:
The Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence (ICHV)
Ex Cons for Community and Social Change
The Institute for Nonviolence Chicago
Funding for Woke and Winning Workshops was provided by a generous grant from the Safe and Peaceful Communities Fund.
Why is community-based programming important?
Community-based programming is a way to activate the resources within our community.
When used in areas of learning and creativity, community-based programming can help better address issues of common concern as well as strengthen our ability to collaborate. Our goal is to manifest a creative network that can sustainably engage with our neighborhood and our planet.
Chicago Patchwork Farms & the Wasteshed collaborate
This summer, The WasteShed partnered with Chicago Patchwork Farms’ AfterSchool Matters Summer Program to create a creative reuse and entrepreneurship youth program.
Throughout the course of this program students learned about growing fresh food in urban environments, and explored the obstacles and resources needed to turn a proposed goal into reality while utilizing reused materials and grassroots organization. The program began by asking the students what they enjoyed about their communities as well as the change they wanted to see. From the very first session, students were candid about the obstacles they face in their neighborhoods. Many wished to feel safer on their block, to see a drug free community, more ethnic diversity. and to see less homelessness on the streets. We engaged in dialogue about the sources of these issues and the lack of resources found in predominantly black and brown neighborhood and how to they could be the source of that forward movement. Through group collaboration, they were able to propose and execute a community fundraiser that would brought visibly to the obstacles they face in their neighborhoods and raised money for a local organization.
The Teachers Resource Project is dedicated to making Chicago's educational system more equitable by giving students and teachers the resources they need to succeed. When you donate to the Teachers Resource Project, 100% of your contribution -- after payment processing fees — covers gently-used materials purchased by Chicago teachers at The WasteShed.
Teachers are enrolled to the program as funds become available. Each quarter, teachers in the Teachers Resource Project will receive a $60 materials stipend ($20/month) from The WasteShed. Because our inventory is typically priced at half of items’ retail price or less, teachers can afford twice the supplies they could get if they shopped at a regular store. Since teachers spend an average of $500 a year on classroom supplies, a $20 monthly donation can cover one Chicago teacher's annual out-of-pocket expenses in full.
Thank you to the 56 amazing educators who have e
nrolled so far!
We would like to thank the Chicago Community Trust’s Young Leaders Fund for making this initiative possible.
Glass Case Gallery
Our Glass Case Art Gallery took off this year with the help of The Awesome Foundation!
The Glass Case Gallery is a handsome midcentury jewelry case salvaged from the Marshall Fields in Evanston. So far we have showcased 9 different local artists who works with 60% or more repurposed materials, with a particular focus on emerging artists, people of color, and makers who have never or rarely shown their work before.
The goals of the Glass Case Mini Art Gallery are:
To provide a platform for the many amazing, diverse artists and craftspeople who come through our store, to encourage them to apply their ingenuity to transforming discarded materials into small art, and to allow them to profit from doing so,
To inspire our customers and demonstrate the awesome power and potential of so-called trash,
To create conversation, collaboration, and connection among the folks who we currently know as customers and neighbors, but who are becoming a new kind of creative community.
These cuties were part of the amazing Jo Jo Baby’s show earlier this year.
#FutureSelf Workshop at the MCA
We taught a workshop at the Museum of Contemporary Art in September! It was cool!
Many thanks also to the Lumpkin Family Foundation and the Langer Foundation for their support!
We look forward to a bounteous and vivid 2019, thanks to our friends, customers, donors and collaborators. If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to support our work, you can do so here.
Thank you and happy holidays!
-The WasteShed Team