I have blogged about green celebrities, but today, I am going to talk about green artists. These are artists that keep ecology themes and social issues in mind when making their art. Most use recycled items or trash to make their art.
One such artist is Diana Ritter. She uses something that used to be very dear to my heart – 3 1/2 inch floppy disks. I was in the computing field when you simply could not live without 3 1/2 floppy disks. God only knows how many of these were created during the ‘80s and ‘90s. Then, technology changed and I believe it is virtually impossible today to even order a new desktop or laptop computer with a floppy disk drive.
So, whatever became of all those floppy disks we used back then? No doubt a large majority of them ended up in landfills, but Ritter is trying to do her part to turn them into art. Diana turns them into one-of-a-kind pieces of art – photo frames, wall hangings, wall art, and what she calls “single disk fun art.” This single floppy disk features artistic themes such as family, holidays, travel, and hobbies. The floppy disk on has a magnet on the back so it can be put on a refrigerator and a ribbon so it can be hung anywhere.
Check out Ritter’s online gallery http://www.disk-art.com/gallery.htm to see how beautiful this “trash” can be.
Maybe you have quite a few useless 3 ½ inch floppy disks lying around your house. While you may not be as artistic as Ritter, you can still make floppy art. If you have enough, you can craft up a floppy disk bag using floppy disks, a drill, pliers, links, nails, a plank of wood, and a pen. You can find the instructions here. You can also make disk pencil holders for all your friends! This requires five floppy disks, a drill, zip ties, a piece of wood, and scissors. You can find the instructions here.
(This image has been released into the public domain by its author, tsca. This applies worldwide.)