>> Wendy Tremayne ( gaiatreehouse.com) is renovating an RV park into a 100% reuse off-grid B&B in Truth or Consequences, N.M. Another project, Swap-O-Rama-Rama ( swaporamarama.org), is a clothing swap and DIY workshop designed to offer people an alternative to consumerism.
It’s easy to imagine the heaps of camping gear lying about collecting dust in thrift shops across America, even as countless commuters in city subway cars and suburban SUVs emit thoughts of longing for the great outdoors: “I really am the outdoorsy type …”
Like contact sports, camping lives in the collective consciousness as something that comes naturally. But Gaia’s terrain is less predictable than the man-made environment that urban and suburban dwellers have grown accustomed to, and so, few are the folk who actually use a camping stove until the time of its natural expiration.
Something downright magical happens when the right gleaner and the right piece of junk — a match of near-perfect chemistry — find one another, and would-be trash is morphed into something new, something that seems even more right than what it was originally intended for. Andrew Martinez has whipped up many such alchemical pairings.
Most recently, Martinez found an old Coleman camping stove at Goodwill and modified it to fulfill his need for a bathroom cabinet. The cabinet he wanted to replace was too shallow, and ready-
made choices were expensive, junky, and so standard in size that they couldn’t fit the unique space. Five bucks and a vision of the old Coleman gutted, cleaned, and mounted to the wall just above the john repaid Martinez’ patience.
Every forager has an eye for particular materials. Martinez likes metal objects. Old, new, rusted, and reconfigured metal things adorn a fence that he made to add privacy to the front yard of his home. The enclosure sports vintage car fenders, a rusty choo-choo train mobile, empty film reels, and abstract metal art pieces of his design. All are curiously mounted on, in, and around found wood and metal verticals that are seamlessly butted together.
As if to add a punch line to the wonderland of this enclosure, a naked chair stripped of its stuffing and re-planked with imaginatively shaped wood slats invites visitors to take a load off. What began as a shortage of options and led to a taste for reuse has resolved itself in a one-of-a-kind palate and good design. Martinez’ idiosyncrasies now serve as a reminder to passersby that amongst the stale impression left by monotonous development, there still reside living beings engaged in authentic play.
Something downright
magical happens when
the right gleaner and
the right piece of junk
find one another.
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