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Airport Revenue News
‘Recycle Runway’ At PHX Shows Dresses Made From Trash
By Jamie Simon
February 24, 2010
The Phoenix Airport Museum and artist/educator Nancy Judd have launched “Recycle Runway,” an exhibit of classic dresses made from materials often discarded, on display at Phoenix Sky Harbor (PHX).
“Environmental education is at the heart of all my work,” says Judd, who uses the art of fashion to raise environmental awareness. “Making trash into elegant and beautiful fashions attracts attention to the actions that we can each take in our everyday lives to care for the planet.”
Her garments are made using post-consumer materials such as aluminum cans, water bottles and junk mail.
“The Phoenix Airport Museum engages and entertains travelers while creating a sense of identity,” says Lennee Eller, Sky Harbor’s museum program manager. “Judd’s exhibition adds the extra bonus of educating and reminding all of us what wonderful things can happen when you are creative about recycling.”
“Recycle Runway” is a traveling exhibition of artist-designed garments created from recyclable materials. It travels the country to promote sustainability. Avila Retail, which owns and operates several shops at Phoenix Sky Harbor, and the Palo Verde group of the Sierra Club also sponsored the artist.
The exhibit is on display through Aug. 8 on Level 2 of Sky Harbor’s Terminal 3, pre-security.
Read article on Airport Revenue News website.
Blind Access Journal
Art Takes Off Down the Recycle Runway in New Airport Exhibition
February 19, 2010
A new art exhibition at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport features clothing made from recycled materials.
The artist, Nancy Judd, an environmental educator with over 20 years of experience in the recycling industry, began her career in art school.
“I watched the garbage can next to the pop machine fill up with cans and that felt wrong to me,” Judd said. “With the blessing of the art school’s administration, I put a recycling bin next to the machine and was wondering what happened to the material and what it got made into.”
Commissioned by companies such as Target, Toyota and the Glass Packaging Institute, Judd spends hundreds of hours making each couture garment from materials including aluminum cans, canvas, crushed glass, paper and reclaimed thread.
She said the airport exhibition includes 14 pieces from her collection representing over ten years of work.
“There’s a dress here which is made from 12,000 pieces of crushed glass that are individually glued to a floor-length evening gown made out of upholstery remnants,” Judd said.
She said the goal of her business, Recycle Runway, is to make garments that attract attention in public venues to the issues of environmental stewardship.
“It’s our everyday, moment-to-moment decisions we make, that have caused the environmental crisis we’re in now and it’s those same moment-to-moment decisions that can help us hopefully move out of this little pickle we’ve gotten ourselves in,” Judd said.
She explained the environmental impact of a simple decision to eat an orange.
“Did you buy it from a big-box store where it was shipped in from Florida or Mexico, or from a local farmer who is keeping the money in your community,” Judd asked. “After you eat it, what do you do with the skin? Do you throw it in the landfill where it sits for as long as 20 years or do you compost it and make it into a valuable nutrient that adds back to the land?”
Judd said she goes into schools to talk with children about environmental awareness.
“I bring dresses made out of aluminum, plastic and paper and I use each garment to talk about recycling”, she said. “I have them write down a pledge on a strip of recycled white office paper stating their name and something they’re going to do, which they haven’t been doing before, to help care for the planet. Those strips of paper are being made into paper link chains that will be sewn to this huge Scarlett O’Hara-style dress. It will be exhibited in the Atlanta airport next year for 12 months.”
Judd isn’t alone in her reliance on recycled materials.
Professional artist Sherrie Zeitlin of Phoenix said money for materials was tight when she started working with K-12 children in schools around Maricopa County 15 years ago.
“What I found was the schools had no money,” Zeitlin said. “I would empower the schools, before I came in, to collect the ribbons and wrapping paper left over from the December holidays, or to collect newspaper, plastic, zippers and even old socks for use in art projects. These materials would be cut up and woven into wall pieces.”
She said this early history was the basis for her 2004 founding of the Art Resource Center.
“I put together a center where I could collect the detritus from industry, corporations and individuals to offer back to any nonprofit organization to be able to make art projects,” Zeitlin said. “It’s all offered free of charge.”
She said she has used recycled materials in her own weaving business making large-scale constructions for architects and interior designers.
“I would go to salvage yards and buy metal and plastic for use in weaving,” she said. “I remember I did a huge weaving for a Dillard’s department store all out of plastic. It looked like a big bride and it went into the lingerie department.”
Zeitlin said the use of recycled materials is a huge trend in the art world.
“It’s a necessity,” she said. “In Feb. 2010, where nobody has any money anymore, it’s a financial issue. ”
“With all the detritus in this world, it’s necessary to just use it up in a different way,” Zeitlin said. “One of the mantras for the Art Resource Center is ‘recycling art worthy materials for creative minds’.”
Lennée Eller, program manager with the Phoenix Airport Museum, said her organization hosts exhibitions by studio artists like Judd and Zeitlin in 25 spaces around the airport system including locations in Terminal 4, Terminal 3, Terminal 2, the rental car facility and even the Deer Valley and Good year airports.
“We showcase the artist’s work through the changing exhibition program for 6 months, then we bring in a new group of work,” Eller said. “The idea is that every artist, gallery and museum has an opportunity to have their work displayed. Over the years it’s been wonderful, because I’ve shown a multitude of diversity.”
Eller said most of the museum’s displays are located outside the security areas for easy access by the airport’s nearly 20,000 employees and 40 million passengers who pass through annually.
“What you see are people who have come early and are getting ready to go down the concourse,” Eller said. “Here’s an interesting secret. If there are a lot of people in line (at the security checkpoint) people will panick and go stand in line. If there are not a lot of people in line, they will stay and go shopping or stop to look at the art.”
Eller said the art draws local residents who are looking for something free to do.
“I have people come and just do the airport tour,” she said. “They come to have coffee and do a walk about just looking at all the shows.”
“We’re the gateway to the state,” said Eller. “It’s really about putting our best foot forward when you’re welcoming people and you want to show them what you’re about.”
Nancy Judd’s Recycle Runway exhibition is on display through Aug. 8 in Terminal 3, Level 2 of the airport next to Starbucks.
Eller said the Phoenix Airport Museum strives to reasonably accommodate people with disabilities who need special assistance accessing exhibitions. They are invited to call 602-273-2105 to set up an appointment.
KTVK Channel 3 News, Good Morning Arizona
Recycle Runway — New Exhibition
KTVK Channel 3 News- February 12, 2010
By Catherine Holland
February 12, 2010
PHOENIX –The Recycle Runway exhibit will be on display at Sky Harbor’s Terminal 3 from Feb. 13-Sept 2010.
Southwest Flair
Nancy Judd : The Art of Green Couture
By Cheryl Yale-Bruedigam
February 2010
Artist Nancy Judd transforms trash into elegant couture fashions and showcases the Recycle Runway Collection in airport exhibitions, class rooms and media outlets around the nation. Her unique work inspires environmental stewardship in millions of people internationally!
Recycle Runway strives to change the way the people live on the earth through innovative environmental educational programs and couture fashions made from trash. The Recycle Runway fashions are exhibited in high-traffic airports to grab travelers’ attention and inspire personal action. Community-based presentations and workshops launch young peoples’ imaginations while providing information on how to conserve resources. Recycle Runway partners with businesses, non-profits, governmental agencies, foundations and individuals who actively support environmental conservation.
Encouraging people to reflect upon their personal environmental impact and take action to reduce their carbon footprint is the heart of Nancy Judd’s mission for Recycle Runway. Ms. Judd strives to live her life and run her business on these principles. She believes that it is the culmination of our individual actions that created the environmental crisis we now face, and that the solution lies in our personal daily choices at home and work. She hopes to inspire people in a fun, creative and positive way to change the decisions we make around food, consumption, transportation, recycling and reuse.
The Recycle Runway Collection: Global corporations including Toyota, Coca-Cola, Target, Novelis Recycling and the Glass Packaging Institute, have sponsored Recycle Runway garments over the last 10 years. Each garment is a one-of-a-kind piece of wearable art that takes between 100 to 450 hours to create. Nancy Judd’s goal is to design all of her garments to last at least 100 years, thus inspiring generations of people to reduce their environmental impact.
The Airport Project: The intent of the Airport Project is to exhibit the Recycle Runway Collection in glass cases in airports around the world, encouraging millions of people to reflect upon sustainability issues in a creative, fun, and eye-catching venue. The Recycle Runway exhibit also showcases organizations that are helping to find solutions to the sustainability issues facing our planet. Following is the Recycle Runway Airport Exhibit schedule for 2010:
• Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Feb 2010-Aug 2010
• Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport Exhibit, Nov 2010-Oct 2011
Youth Education: Working with youth is at the core of the Recycle Runway mission. Nancy Judd gives presentations and workshops to young people across the country using her couture recycled garments to capture the kids’ imaginations. She also invites the children to make a new garment with her! The Youth Eco-Dress will be created from environmental pledges, made by the children, on strips of recycled paper turned into paper-link-chains and attached to a Scarlett O’Hara style dress. It will be completed in time for the Atlanta Airport Exhibit and seen by over 13 million people!
Ms. Judd offers workshops and presentations to adult audiences as well as youth.
Background on Nancy Judd: In 1998, while working as the Recycling Coordinator for the City of Santa Fe, Ms. Judd helped to found an annual event called the Recycle Santa Fe Market. The weekend long recycled art market and exhibit begins with a trash fashion contest. Ms. Judd began making recycled garments to promote the contest and soon had an impressive collection of recycled outfits. The National Recycling Coalition invited her to put on a recycled fashion show at their annual conference in 2003 and soon she was booked all over the country.
In 2000 Ms. Judd left her job at the city, started a consulting business, and served as the Executive Director of the New Mexico Recycling Coalition through 2005.
During this time Nancy Judd traveled through the US giving over 30 recycled fashion shows and youth presentations.
In 2006 Ms Judd decided to turn all of her attention to her recycled fashion project fulltime. She renamed the business Recycle Runway and realized that exhibitions in airports would give her a larger audience for her message of environmental stewardship.
Ms. Judd grew up in Portland Oregon and received her BA from Pitzer College (Claremont, California) in Art and Sociology. She spent time at the Laguna Beach Art Institute and the University of Georgia’s art program in Cortona, Italy. A self-taught seamstress, Nancy Judd has been sewing, designing clothing and jewelry and making
art since she was a child.
She began her career in the recycling field immediately after she graduated in 1990 by developing a recycling program for Pitzer College. She completed a Solid Waste Certification Program at the University of Los Angeles, California while serving as recycling coordinator for the Los Angeles Conservation Corps. In 1995 she moved to
Santa Fe, New Mexico to work as waste reduction/recycling coordinator for the City of Santa Fe. In 2000 she became the executive director of the New Mexico Recycling Coalition and in 2006 formalized Recycle Runway into a full time business venture.
For more information please visit www.recyclerunway.com
Editor’s Note: Ms. Judd is likely one of the most talented people in today’s world. I highly encourage you to visit her website, learn about her methods and explore the photos available showcasing her talent. I know that you will be as impressed as I was for she is truly an artistic midwife with the ability to birth into being that which is born only of the creative spirit.
Earth Odyssey
From trash to couture fashions
By Ann Haver-Allen
January 1, 2010
Clothing made using paper, aluminum, nails, car wiring and tape cassettes—anything is game for Nancy Judd’s unique recycling.
Nancy Judd is not your ordinary recycler. Sure, she does the ordinary recycling things, but Judd’s Earth-friendly actions go way beyond ordinary. She has built a successful business around the idea of extreme recycling.
Judd creates haute couture fashions out of trash and garbage. She displays her Recycle Runway fashions at airports nationwide.
“I love the challenge of making garbage beautiful, glamorous and sexy,” Judd said. “I strive to transform the concept of ‘waste’ into ‘resource’ and encourage individual responsibility for the environment in a fun, playful and positive context.”
Judd has had commissions from many corporations, including Coca-Cola, Target, Toyota and Starbucks. Each original hand-sewn garment takes between 100 to 400 hours to make and the finished product becomes part of the Recycle Runway Collection.
“The garments are displayed in airports nationwide and continue to ‘work’ capturing people’s attention so that I can talk about environmental topics,” Judd said. “So the companies get to be associated with the environment, art, fashion and youth in front of tens of millions of people through the airport exhibits, the youth presentations and the associated press.”
The airport exhibits encourage people to rethink their definition of “waste” and inspire people to consider the impact of their choices on the Earth. “I want to change the way the people think about their relationship to the environment,” Judd said.
“I want them to realize that it is the culmination of each of our individual moment-to-moment decisions that has caused the polluted air, the polluted water and the polluted land as well as the global warming and species extinction that we hear about everyday. Likewise, it is our moment-to-moment decisions at home, at work, at school, at church and in all our social activities that can mitigate the damage we have created.”
Judd began Recycling Runway 11 years ago. She was working as the recycling coordinator for the City of Santa Fe and realized that art and fashion could be used to raise the consciousness of the public about recycling in a fun and positive way.
She started the Recycle Santa Fe Art Market to provide a forum for recycling artists to share their creations. The Art Market always opens with a recycled fashion contest.
“I would make a dress every year to promote the contest,” Judd said. “Soon, I had a wonderful collection of recycled garments and I started to get invited by other recycling coordinators around the country to give recycled fashion shows in their communities.”
She did that for about two years. “I realized that I could reach more people with my message of sustainability in airports,” she said. “I also wanted an audience that was not already environmentally minded.”
Education is a big part of what Judd does. “The focus of everything I do is environmental education,” Judd said. “In addition to the airport installations, I also give presentations to youth. I encourage people to change at least one thing in their lives to benefit the environment.”
As part of her education effort, Judd plans to make an Eco-Youth dress.
“I ask youth to take a pledge, to do just one thing for the environment,” she said. “These pledges will be made into the Eco-Youth dress.” But where, you ask, does she get the ideas for her garments?
“My design sensibility is influenced by fashions from 1900 to 1950,” she said. “I get most of my ideas from watching old movies and poring over fashion books from that period.”
When she is commissioned by a company to make a garment out of specific materials, she begins by thinking about the properties of the material and how she might transform them into something beautiful. “At the same time, I am looking in my vintage fashion books and the two sources of information seem to come together in a daydream—and a dress is born,” Judd said.
She said the most unusual material that she has recycled into a garment was car parts. “Toyota commissioned me to dig through their recycling containers,” Judd said. “They recycle between 80 percent to 95 percent of their garbage, so there is not much in their trash cans to choose from! This garment proved to ME that I could make anything elegant…even car parts!”
The Toyota two-piece suit was made using two different convertible soft tops. The “faux fur” on the lapel of the jacket is made from electrical wire. The hat is made from a front-end mask and accented with electrical copper wire. The purse is woven out of electrical wire and metal paper that is wound around electrical components.
Judd’s ingenuity incorporates a vast collection of garbage and recycled materials, including old rusty nails that are sewn and glued to a 1950’s style cocktail dress. The accompanying hat is made from canvas remnants. Completing the outfit is a vintage purse and a matching pair of shoes, also adorned with old rusty nails.
Judd made a 1920’s flapper dress from an old cloth shower curtain that features aluminum teardrops and circles cut from cans and hand sewn onto the material. She created a stylish coat from old cassette tapes that were woven into the fabric of a thrift-store coat. Discarded video tape made the collar and cuffs. The coat’s lining was once a prom dress.
Her “Fan Mail Dress” is made from junk mail that she folded into fans and sewed onto a skirt and dress made of scrap canvas. The Spanish influenced dress has a matching mantilla for the hair and vintage shoes that are covered with old postage stamps. Although Judd is no longer directly involved with the Recycle Santa Fe Art Market, she still shows a new garment in the fashion show each year.
“A number of people in Santa Fe follow my work, so it’s always fun to debut my latest piece there,” she said. “This show has become one of Santa Fe’s celebrated arts events. People come from all over the country to both sell artwork and shop.” Judd said that change starts with small steps and while many people already recycle, she wants to build on this.
“I have a very strong belief that if we pay attention to what is interesting, to what makes us curious, to what is fun and to what we love to do then we find ourselves in some amazing places,” Judd said. “This has been my experience and it has led into this incredible career. I share this message with the thousands of kids that I talk to but I think it is applicable to anyone! I feel so fortunate for this unusual, fun, meaningful and very fulfilling career!”
In February, Recycle Runway will be coming to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The show will run through August.
Read article on Earth Odyssey website.
Clothing made using paper, aluminum, nails, car wiring and tape cassettes—anything is game for Nancy Judd’s unique recycling
By Ann Haver-Allen
Nancy Judd is not your ordinary recycler. Sure, she does the ordinary recycling things, but Judd’s Earth-friendly actions go way beyond ordinary. She has built a successful business around the idea of extreme recycling.
Judd creates haute couture fashions out of trash and garbage. She displays her Recycle Runway fashions at airports nationwide.
“I love the challenge of making garbage beautiful, glamorous and sexy,” Judd said. “I strive to transform the concept of ‘waste’ into ‘resource’ and encourage individual responsibility for the environment in a fun, playful and positive context.”
Judd has had commissions from many corporations, including Coca-Cola, Target, Toyota and Starbucks. Each original hand-sewn garment takes between 100 to 400 hours to make and the finished product becomes part of the Recycle Runway Collection.
“The garments are displayed in airports nationwide and continue to ‘work’ capturing people’s attention so that I can talk about environmental topics,” Judd said. “So the companies get to be associated with the environment, art, fashion and youth in front of tens of millions of people through the airport exhibits, the youth presentations and the associated press.”
The airport exhibits encourage people to rethink their definition of “waste” and inspire people to consider the impact of their choices on the Earth. “I want to change the way the people think about their relationship to the environment,” Judd said.
“I want them to realize that it is the culmination of each of our individual moment-to-moment decisions that has caused the polluted air, the polluted water and the polluted land as well as the global warming and species extinction that we hear about everyday. Likewise, it is our moment-to-moment decisions at home, at work, at school, at church and in all our social activities that can mitigate the damage we have created.”
Judd began Recycling Runway 11 years ago. She was working as the recycling coordinator for the City of Santa Fe and realized that art and fashion could be used to raise the consciousness of the public about recycling in a fun and positive way.
She started the Recycle Santa Fe Art Market to provide a forum for recycling artists to share their creations. The Art Market always opens with a recycled fashion contest.
“I would make a dress every year to promote the contest,” Judd said. “Soon, I had a wonderful collection of recycled garments and I started to get invited by other recycling coordinators around the country to give recycled fashion shows in their communities.”
She did that for about two years. “I realized that I could reach more people with my message of sustainability in airports,” she said. “I also wanted an audience that was not already environmentally minded.”
Education is a big part of what Judd does. “The focus of everything I do is environmental education,” Judd said. “In addition to the airport installations, I also give presentations to youth. I encourage people to change at least one thing in their lives to benefit the environment.”
As part of her education effort, Judd plans to make an Eco-Youth dress.
“I ask youth to take a pledge, to do just one thing for the environment,” she said. “These pledges will be made into the Eco-Youth dress.” But where, you ask, does she get the ideas for her garments?
“My design sensibility is influenced by fashions from 1900 to 1950,” she said. “I get most of my ideas from watching old movies and poring over fashion books from that period.”
When she is commissioned by a company to make a garment out of specific materials, she begins by thinking about the properties of the material and how she might transform them into something beautiful. “At the same time, I am looking in my vintage fashion books and the two sources of information seem to come together in a daydream—and a dress is born,” Judd said.
She said the most unusual material that she has recycled into a garment was car parts. “Toyota commissioned me to dig through their recycling containers,” Judd said. “They recycle between 80 percent to 95 percent of their garbage, so there is not much in their trash cans to choose from! This garment proved to ME that I could make anything elegant…even car parts!”
The Toyota two-piece suit was made using two different convertible soft tops. The “faux fur” on the lapel of the jacket is made from electrical wire. The hat is made from a front-end mask and accented with electrical copper wire. The purse is woven out of electrical wire and metal paper that is wound around electrical components.
Judd’s ingenuity incorporates a vast collection of garbage and recycled materials, including old rusty nails that are sewn and glued to a 1950’s style cocktail dress. The accompanying hat is made from canvas remnants. Completing the outfit is a vintage purse and a matching pair of shoes, also adorned with old rusty nails.
Judd made a 1920’s flapper dress from an old cloth shower curtain that features aluminum teardrops and circles cut from cans and hand sewn onto the material. She created a stylish coat from old cassette tapes that were woven into the fabric of a thrift-store coat. Discarded video tape made the collar and cuffs. The coat’s lining was once a prom dress.
Her “Fan Mail Dress” is made from junk mail that she folded into fans and sewed onto a skirt and dress made of scrap canvas. The Spanish influenced dress has a matching mantilla for the hair and vintage shoes that are covered with old postage stamps. Although Judd is no longer directly involved with the Recycle Santa Fe Art Market, she still shows a new garment in the fashion show each year.
“A number of people in Santa Fe follow my work, so it’s always fun to debut my latest piece there,” she said. “This show has become one of Santa Fe’s celebrated arts events. People come from all over the country to both sell artwork and shop.” Judd said that change starts with small steps and while many people already recycle, she wants to build on this.
“I have a very strong belief that if we pay attention to what is interesting, to what makes us curious, to what is fun and to what we love to do then we find ourselves in some amazing places,” Judd said. “This has been my experience and it has led into this incredible career. I share this message with the thousands of kids that I talk to but I think it is applicable to anyone! I feel so fortunate for this unusual, fun, meaningful and very fulfilling career!”
In February, Recycle Runway will be coming to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The show will run through August.
AAA Magazine, New Mexico Journey
Can Do Attitude
AAA Magazine
By Megan Kamerick, photograph by Ann Murdy
December 2009
Eleven years ago, Nancy Judd made her first dress out of recycled materials for the Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival, which she cofounded. Today, her mission is education through fashion. She creates recycled garments through her company, Recycle Runway, and exhibits them in public spaces and in schools. What is the Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival? It was created to attract people to a fun event that, at the same time, would encourage recycling, reuse, and waste reduction. There is a recycled-art market, a juried art exhibition, a kids’ exhibit, information booths, and a recycled-fashion contest.
Why did you want to start it? As Santa Fe’s recycling coordinator, I was responsible for public education. I put recycling and art together and came up with this. People can come do their Christmas shopping and see their kids in the fashion show and their kids’ artwork displayed.
Were you always an environmentalist? During college, I took a year off to go to art school. One day, I saw a garbage can filling up with aluminum cans and asked the school to get a recycling bin. Then I just got interested in who picked up that material and where it went and what it was made into. I did an independent study on recycling and waste management and that led to my career in recycling. It was Recycle Santa Fe that brought me back to art. I’d been sewing my whole life, but I’d never made a recycled dress before.
What goes into making a dress? For one dress, I folded origami fans out of junk mail and sewed them to a skirt. It took me about 200 hours to make because I had to choose the mail pieces, then cut them into squares and fold them. Then I hand-sewed them onto a skirt I made.
Do you have a favorite? I’m particularly fond of one made of aluminum cans cut into teardrop shapes and sewn to a dress made from ,a cloth shower curtain. It sounds beautiful when you wear it—it’s like being a human tambourine.
Are your designs inspired by the materials? What inspires me is the idea of taking something we consider trash and transforming it into something beautiful or elegant or sexy. My goal is to abolish the whole concept of waste and to redesign how we manufacture so everything becomes a resource.
The Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival takes place November 13-15 at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe. (505) 603-0558; recyclesantafe.orq. For information about Recycle Runway, go to recyclerunway.com.
Planet Green
Discover Trashion (Trash Fashion) at the Green Inaugural Ball
By Heather Sperling
January 20, 2009
Trash + Fashion = Trashion. Simple, right? Not necessarily—one of Nancy Judd’s winter coats, made from Obama fliers, took 200 hours to cut, paste and sew.
The Wall Street Journal has a slide show of some of Judd’s work, which will be modeled at the all-organic Green Inaugural Ball in Washington, DC, on the 20th. The vintage-inspired pieces are clever and ornate, if not user-friendly (you can’t sit down in them, says Judd). A personal favorite is the glass evening gown, which has a ruby slipper-like appeal with an edge—literally—thanks to 12,000 pieces of crushed glass from the City of Albuquerque Recycling Program.
Judd’s “Recycle Runway” pieces are exhibited at airports around the country with the hope that they’ll inspire travelers to personal action-to think twice before throwing out that old sweater, or at least put their coke can in the recycle bin. Because who knows—it could be turned into something chic!
You’ll see Judd’s designs if you pass through the Pittsburgh airport this year. They’ll be in Orlando airport in summer 2009, and in Atlanta in 2011.
Read article on Planet Green website
Agence France-Presse
Dumpster couture makes foray into Obamaworld
Nancy Judd at the Green Inaugural Ball
January 18, 2009
By Olivia Hampton
WASHINGTON (AFP) — It was the day after Barack Obama’s historic November 4 election win, when environmental artist and educator Nancy Judd went dumpster diving behind the Obama campaign headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico, desperate to collect any salvageable materials.
“I made a mad dash around town. In many cases, they had already started throwing things in dumpsters and I was pulling material out of dumpsters,” Judd told AFP.
“I started seeing posters and decals and I was finding drawings by children and all kinds of amazing materials that I felt like I just wanted to save … then it was just an obvious next step: since I make clothing out of trash, I am going to make a collection of garments and take it to the inauguration.”
Judd unveiled her “Campaign for Change Couture Collection” Saturday at the Green Inaugural Ball that drew about 1,000 environmentalists, an event among dozens in Washington honoring Obama’s inauguration.
The centerpiece was “Obamanos,” a 1950s vintage men’s coat adorned with countless 1.5-inch (4-centimeter)-long strips of Obama campaign door hangers that Judd said took 200 hours to make.
“I interpret it as we are Obama, we are this movement. It’s a tribute to the millions of people who worked for him,” she said.
Even Obama’s defeated opponent, John McCain, has his place on the coat — under the right armpit. Although the suit was tailored to fit Obama, wearing it would not be an easy affair.
“There’s a little bit of movement back and forth, but he can’t wave,” Judd explained.
At the ball, Judd wore an “Obama cocktail dress,” fashioned from campaign yard signs sewn in overlapping layers on a recycled sheet.
A model showed off the “Voter Swing Coat,” made from voter registration posters for New Mexico, a swing state, cut into strips and woven together into a paper fabric adhered to recycled canvas. A paper lace from punctured voter registration cards covered the coat’s collar and outer edges.
Crafting a single one of her handmade garments usually takes about six months to make, Judd said. But with the help of some 20 people in her studio, she wrapped up all three pieces in just two months.
She is also selling tote bags made from discarded yard signs to help finance her trip to Washington, where she will present her Obama-themed collection again on Monday at a reception for a New Mexico delegation and will organize workshops for local students.
Judd, 40, is no stranger to “trashion.” She first started making clothing out of discarded materials a decade ago and made her hobby into a business, Recycle Runway, two years ago.
Among her dumpster chic are a faux fur coat with thousands of loops of cassette and video tapes and an evening gown adorned with some 12,000 pieces of crushed glass — both of which took 400 hours to make.
“When you can engage people in a really positive way that is fun and playful and makes them smile and is creative, I feel like the message can be stronger than the doom and gloom, we’re all going to die kind of thing,” Judd said.
Judd’s hopes are also echoed in the energy and environmental policies of the incoming administration. Obama has called for an effort to overhaul US energy policy on the scale of the Apollo project that first landed a man on the Moon.
His plan includes unleashing 150 billion dollars over 10 years to create five million new “green” jobs, an 80 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and ensuring that 10 percent of US energy consumed comes from renewable sources by 2012 and 25 percent by 2025.
“This time must be different,” Obama said in December when referring to his environmental and energy policies.
“This will be a leading priority of my presidency and a defining test of our time. We cannot accept complacency, nor accept any more broken promises.”
The Wall Street Journal
Nancy Judd, Wall Street Journal Drawing
SANTA FE, N.M. — In the world of trashy fashion, designer Nancy Judd has hit the big time.
FRONT PAGE
January 13, 2009
By Stephanie Simon
Read article on-line.
Ms. Judd spends her days in a studio here crafting clothing from castoff plastic bags, electrical wire and old cassette tapes. Now, her Dumpster couture has caught the eye of environmental activists, who plan to showcase her work in Washington at Saturday’s Green Inaugural Ball honoring President-elect Barack Obama.
The star piece: A man’s coat made from Mr. Obama’s campaign fliers. She says it took her 200 hours to cut and paste and sew it.
Showing her stuff in the nation’s capital is a big step for a woman who used to put on a furry blue costume and sweat her way through parades as Carlos Coyote, Santa Fe’s recycling mascot. Working for the city trash department, Ms. Judd did the coyote gig for years. She also ran workshops and recorded radio ads urging New Mexicans to recycle. But she worried that nobody was paying attention.
Ms. Judd began to wonder whether she could spark new interest in solid waste by making garbage glamorous.
Ms. Judd, who is 40 years old, has no training in fashion. She can’t sketch. She gets design ideas from old paper dolls. Still, she figured out how to craft a saucy cocktail dress from a shower curtain and aluminum cans. She fashioned a slinky black gown from canvas scraps and hundreds of rusty nails. When worn, it clinks alluringly.
She once spent 400 hours, she says, unspooling cassettes and crocheting the crinkled tape into a fake-fur coat.
As attire, the outfits have their limitations. An evening gown sparkling with 12,000 bits of glass tends to shed; a fitted jacket cut from the vinyl top of a convertible is so well insulated, it doubles as a sweat lodge.
Also, says Ms. Judd, “you can’t sit down in any of them.”
What steps are you taking to live “green” or protect the environment?
.But these aren’t meant to be wardrobe mainstays. Ms. Judd conceives of them more as wearable sculpture. “I like the idea of making aluminum elegant, or rusty nails sexy,” she says.
Turns out, she isn’t alone.
A decade ago, when Ms. Judd was making her first rescued-from-the-landfill dress — a somewhat revealing number made of bubble wrap — recycling had already hit the mainstream. Manufacturers were turning plastic bottles into fleece outdoor wear.
But the world of environmentally conscious designers was small, says Delia Montgomery, founder of Chic Eco, an “earth friendly” fashion consulting firm. “Now I can’t keep up,” she says.
Woven Candy Wrappers
Artisans in developing countries sell purses woven from candy wrappers. Online boutiques market belts made from the inner tubes of bicycles. A designer in Chile recently announced she had pulled apart the filters in cigarette butts and woven them into a coarse thread to crochet vests.
By necessity, most of this experimentation is small-scale. It takes a whole lot of time to scrub the coffee residue from empty Starbucks bags, then snip out the mylar lining for use in a gown. “Anyone trying to mass-produce this throws their hands up in the air,” Ms. Montgomery says.
But for boutique designers, the niche market is enough. “The sheer weirdness of it — people just love it,” says Robin Worley, a fashion designer in Seattle who studs her clothes with gears from discarded watches.
The concept has infiltrated pop culture on cable television, thanks to the Bravo reality series “Project Runway,” which has challenged aspiring designers to construct outfits from recyclables.
Two years ago, Ms. Judd decided to try to capitalize on the emerging trend by turning her hobby into a full-time job through a business she calls Recycle Runway.
She doesn’t sell her work; she markets it as an educational tool. She wants to use her Dumpster couture — otherwise known as “trashion” — to illustrate talks about the solid-waste problem and to raise awareness through instructive art exhibits.
“You can’t be didactic or shaming or all gloom-and-doom” when talking about sustainability, or the audience may tune out, Ms. Judd says. “So you sneak in the back door” with fanciful fashions.
The concept intrigued curators at the Pittsburgh International Airport, who organized a show on Concourse C this past fall. When she came to set up the exhibit, Ms. Judd also spoke to several youth groups.
“The children were amazed to see that something so beautiful could be created out of something we would normally throw away,” says Pat Bluett, assistant executive director of a suburban Boys and Girls Club. The club’s recycling volume has since doubled, she says.
The educational theme also appealed to Jenna Mack, co-producer of Saturday’s Green Inaugural Ball. The all-organic, $500-a-ticket event is expected to draw 1,000 environmentalists. Models will show off Ms. Judd’s fashions on platforms in the lobby.
“Maybe the mental image of that dress made from glass might make people think twice before they throw out a bottle next time,” Ms. Mack says.
The whimsy factor also gives Ms. Mack bragging rights on a party-packed weekend with dueling environmental-themed galas. The other Green Inaugural Ball has Al Gore. This one has Ms. Judd’s canvas-scrap dress embroidered with shiny flowers cut from Coke cans.
Glad as she is to be heading to Washington, Ms. Judd won’t make any money from the show. (In fact, she’s selling tote bags made from recycled Obama signs to cover her expenses.) In general, she has found profits don’t match her passion; these past two years, she has been living mostly on savings and a small-business loan. But she is undeterred.
The morning after the November election, Ms. Judd hoisted herself into a Dumpster outside an Obama campaign office and scooped up armfuls of posters. She collected a precinct map, a phone list, a pink flier advertising sweatshirts, a child’s drawing of the Obama logo as a scoop of ice-cream, over the slogan, “Yum We Can.”
Dumping it out on her studio floor the other day, Ms. Judd gazed at her loot. Some of the paper was crumpled and torn; there were footprints on one sign, and smears of paint. “Won’t it be so fun to use this?” she asked.
She has already made three items of Obama-wear: A sun dress stitched from plastic yard signs; a suit woven from strips of voter-registration posters; and the man’s coat, made from stiffly lacquered door hangers.
Ms. Judd looked up Mr. Obama’s measurements and tailored the coat for him. She wishes he would stop by to try it on. After some trial and error, she figured out how to hinge the sleeves to give him some measure of mobility. “He can’t wave,” she says. “But he can shake a hand.”
The New Mexican
Campaign couture: Recycle Runway owner to show off Obama fashions at inaugural ball
The New Mexican January 3, 2009
By Dennis J. Carroll
January 03, 2009
Nancy Judd, Santa Fe’s Dumpster fashionista, will be strutting her environmentally correct ensembles made from recycled materials — from crushed glass and audio cassette tapes to soda tabs and campaign signs — Jan. 17 at The Green Inaugural Ball in Washington, D.C.
Judd, 40, owner of Recycle Runway, also has been invited to the inaugural party hosted by New Mexico’s congressional delegation on Jan. 19, the night before the Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration.
Green Ball producers said “every facet of The Green Ball is designed to reduce the impact on the environment.” Catering will be 100 percent organic, and the bars will feature local and organic beverages. Food waste and floral arrangements will be composted and bottles will be recycled. Lighting systems and decorative features have been designed to be energy efficient.
The event is expected to be attended by about 1,000 individuals and representatives of environmental organizations. The ball will be held at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium.
Judd, a former waste-management manager for the city of Santa Fe, is sewing, gluing and stapling 24/7 to complete what she calls her Campaign for Change Couture Collection to be showcased at the event.
The outfits — “you just can’t sit down” — include a 1950s-style cocktail dress made from Obama yard signs, a man’s winter coat covered with paper campaign door hangers, a woman’s “swing” coat stitched together using voter-registration materials and a ball gown made from campaign posters.
The man’s coat “is essentially the feeling of the campaign,” Judd said, featuring many of the people who supported Obama and worked on the campaign.
Judd said it took about 200 hours to make the coat and 25 hours for the dress.
What probably won’t be noticed is a humorous jab at Republicans — a photo of John McCain under the coat’s right armpit.
Judd said live models will be showing off the pieces on pedestals set up in the lobby entrance to the Mellon Auditorium.
Jenna Mack, one of the ball’s producers, described Judd’s collection as “beyond fabulous,” and said Judd was invited to the ball because her work fit so well with the theme of the ball and many of the president-elect’s expected environmental and conservation policies.
She said Judd’s work “makes a statement to remind people” of the necessity of recycling and conservation and “gets the dialogue started” among people who view Judd’s creations.
Judd also expects to be conducting conservation workshops at Washington, D.C.-area schools.
Judd said that the day after the Nov. 4 election she went campaign Dumpster diving in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, retrieving such items as posters, yard signs and even original artwork done for the Obama campaign.
To finance her trip, Judd hopes to raise about $25,000 from corporate sponsors and through the sale of Obama tote bags, $50 each, made from recycled yard signs.
Judd also has been using Santa Fe’s WESST Corp. to help her organize the project, and Southwest Creations to make the tote bags.
Many of Judd’s outfits are on a road tour of sorts at airports around the country.
“Elegant garments created from recycled materials are exhibited in high-traffic airports to grab travelers’ attention and inspire personal action,” Judd says on her Web site, www.recyclerunway.com. She also conducts environment and recycling workshops for children in the cities where her airport fashion runways are on display.
Recycle Runway also has drummed up sponsors as diverse as Toyota, Coca-Cola and the Glass Packaging Institute.
The airport displays include a faux-fur jacket made of with thousands of loops of cassette and video tape; a dress train made of origami junk-mail fans, sewn together like fish scales; and an evening gown glittering with thousands of pieces of crushed recycled glass.
Judd’s creations have been on display at the Pittsburgh International Airport since August.
Her first airport show was at the Albuquerque International Sunport in October 2007.
Judd’s outfits combine elements of art, fashion and politics (she was a volunteer for the Obama campaign).
“I don’t make them to resell them. I don’t make them to mass produce them. They are wearable sculptures. That’s how I look at it. I don’t have fashion background.”
Judd started Recycled Runway seven years ago while working as the recycling coordinator for the city of Santa Fe. She was subsequently executive director of the New Mexico Recycling Coalition.
