Suzanne Tick’s weavings are made from discarded materials.

At first sight, Suzanne Tick‘s weavings might leave you questioning what exactly it is you are looking at. There is an inherent balance and loveliness to her work, though the material reveals itself slowly. The ethereal quality of thin metal doesn’t immediately give way to the knowledge that the medium is recycled from discarded coat hangers from dry cleaning shops. In fact, 2,555 dry cleaning wires make up RefuseDC, which was commissioned for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Offices in Seattle.

Counter Balance

Wire and metal hangers, 2011

Says Tick :

“I’m always looking for materials that are in abundance for new weaving projects. My dad inherited a third-generation scrap metal yard, so I grew up recycling, and I looked at these things one day and thought, I should save these.”

Matter

Cardboard, plastic and metal, 2011

It’s no wonder Tick knows what to do with her unusual materials. She was the creative director of Knoll Textiles for nearly a decade, where she continues to design the majority of their fabrics. The influence of her textile design work is evident in Tick’s body of fine art.

Fiber optic yarn, weaving, illuminators

Collection Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum

Working with discarded scraps she collectively calls Salvage, Tick consistently produces interesting work that, in her capable hands, reorganizes detritus into shimmering works allowing us to see beauty in what is normally just considered landfill.

Silver Tape

Woven tape, 2011

Eco, trends, art, creativity and how they tumble through social media to shape culture fascinate EcoSalon columnist Dominique Pacheco. Her personal blog, mixingreality, speaks to these topics daily, and here at EcoSalon, she takes a weekly look at the intersection of eco and art. We call it heARTbeat.

Images: Adrian Wilson

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