Coping with Eco-Anxiety

I can't walk past an alley without side-eyeing the long concrete corridors for my next dive. I get a rush when I spy a free, neglected thing with dreamy potential. I'm also a sucker for thrift stores, estate sales and free boxes. Trash-to-treasure hunts scratch my creative itch. They are also a coping mechanism to temporarily alleviate my eco-anxiety.

It’s hard not to get pulled down into a darkness of despair thinking about whether we’ll ever dig ourselves out of the capitalistic, consumptive culture we've created that is disproportionately impacting our most vulnerable people. In fact, there is nearly a million tons of trash sent to American landfills each year. In the U.S., we have an estimated 15 years worth of landfill capacity remaining. Yikes! What's worse is these trash yards are, more often than not, located near communities of color alongside other highly polluting, highly unhealthy facilities that also deal with junk.

I get the most satisfaction from back alley junk transformations, mainly because these items are minutes away from never getting the chance to be revived. Living in a populated city, I have easy access to a trove of grab-and-go goodies, which presents its ups and downs...

PRO: Any day of the week, I can walk out my back door and find useful stuff. I spend very little money on new stuff because the trash and thrift gods often answer my prayers. I live for the joy of finding a function for unconventional objects. With some imagination, tools, and modest skill, I can usually piece together functional furniture, suitable storage or delightful decor.

I’ll confess, I often leave projects unfinished for a period of time. That’s partly because I enjoy the visioning part of the process more than the production. My handy skills are a work in progress still. It's also partly because I can intuit when it’s time to take a pause. I'll have a hunch that there’s an unclaimed alley-find or a brewing bit of inspiration yet to be uncovered that's needed to complete the puzzle. My most gratifying moments are when I find a purpose for a random rescued material that's been sitting dusty for years, waiting on standby for the perfect unforeseen use.

CON: Any day of the week, I can walk out my back door and find useful stuff. Stuff that will meet its demise in our quickly filling landfills, slowly deteriorating over hundreds of years (in the case of mylar balloons, never, ever biodegrading). At every corner, I feel the hot stares of reusable or repurposable discarded items. I either carry home the weight of that discarded thing or I carry home the weight of guilt for leaving it behind.

My individual upcycling habit is barely a drop in the climate mitigation bucket. When my efforts are feeling inadequate, thankfully, my guilt and innate optimism keep me committed to conservation. I eventually discovered, though, an even more important purpose to my creative trash-driven pursuits. By keeping my mind and my hands busy, I tend to fret less over the doom of our planet, which ultimately creates space for me to dream bigger...

To be honest, I felt shy about sharing my passion for dumpster diving. The stigma is real, so I typically did not disclose my practice to others. But I came to realize hoarding stuff—and ideas—would never substantively benefit the greater good. My love for people is as great as my love for planet. I was so focused on the environment, I forgot the power of community. So, I started to talk more openly about my junk obsession and creative endeavors. I enjoyed seeing the fascination and intrigue on people's faces. Eventually, friends and family started to share with me how they’d started to be more conscientious and shift their own thoughts and behaviors. Whoa, my impact was growing simply by talking about it. Even my little one started to become a plastic waste warrior.

I got pumped to expand these experiences beyond my immediate circle and maybe even turn this into a career. Initially, I wanted to create an imaginative, educational children's play space using reclaimed materials. The idea then evolved into a museum-esque space for adults, too. I wanted to call it Nowhere because we, as humans, have nowhere else to go so we need to preserve our one and only planet. And it sounded fun for people to say, "Let's go Nowhere!"

First, I needed a prototype. I decided to start with a large-scale, interactive, playful installation with the intent of inspiring even more people to find creative re-uses for stuff they might be inclined to toss.

I definitely could not accomplish this alone. Luckily, I have an artsy, crafty, resourceful family (from where I got my predisposition). My cousin's wife, Erica Hoosic, became my lead artist and co-creator. My sister, Jenny Boehme, designed the graphics and helped craft plastic flowers. My parents, uncles, aunts, and little one all pitched in. Just the process of sourcing materials was an educational opportunity for everyone involved. (The scrap yard is a glorious place btw!)

After five months of planning, designing, building, and crafting, "The Last Garden" was ready to bloom in its full trashy glory at the One Earth Film Festival at Navy Pier.

On March 12, 2020, the day before our scheduled exhibition, I was driving the finished installation from Akron, Ohio to Chicago, Illinois. In the car, we found out the city was shutting down and the festival was cancelled due to this mysterious new virus, COVID-19. That was a major blow in so many ways. I had hoped this could be the start of a new entrepreneurial endeavor. Instead, it became a time to reflect and re-assess.

I spent months iterating on my business concept to encourage reducing and reusing trash without the prerequisite of hosting people in close proximity. One day, my partner, who likes to troll online for businesses for sale, randomly remarked on a local, family-owned embroidery business. My creative synapses sparked... Instead of stitching new polos with logos, could these machines bring garments back from the brink of rejection? Could embroidery help mitigate the fast fashion problem, one of the major culprits of waste, pollution and resource usage? It was worth some discovery and, at first pass, seemed like a more financially feasible concept than my original. Maybe this forced pause was a blessing in disguise.

Youtube became my bestie. I tunneled down into the world of embroidery how-to's. There are many incredible designers creating works of walking art using hand-stitched embroidery. I'm in awe of these artists, yet I saw an opportunity to preserve more clothes in the same period of stitching time using machinery. Plus, I'm not an artist. In theory, machine embroidery seemed promising as a technique for infusing life back into clothing. I could try applique to cover a stain, repair a hole, or simply jazz up a plain article of clothing.

One challenge arose, the typical embroidery designs available for purchase were mainly tailored to, let's say, a specific crowd and were not exactly my taste. Especially applique designs, which typically use a satin stitch, lean less modern. Another synaptic spark! My new creative idea had potential, now it was time to tap community again. I reached out to local artists and designers about supplying designs that I could digitize then embroider on these in-need garments. Their enthusiasm was encouraging.

My next step required a major leap of faith. Earlier this year, I invested in a multi-needle embroidery machine on eBay, digitizing software, hoops and funky scissors. I built my own super stable table from all reclaimed materials (using my collection of takeout bamboo chopsticks to hold thread spools).

So far, it's been a steep learning curve figuring out the mix of machinery and technology. There’s been plenty of trial and error. I’ve also discovered that there is relatively a lot of waste in embroidery, so I’m enjoying experimenting with new techniques to reduce and reuse various materials, which can hopefully influence others in the industry to improve. I've also joined a local circular economy network, another source of inspiration and motivation. I’m closing in on the day when I'll feel confident in my skills to embellish a blemish and help someone re-love a flawed, landfill-bound garment.

Ultimately, my plan is to grow Nowhere Collective into a network of makers, tinkerers, creators and repairers working to extend the life of tons of “junk" in order to evade a dead end destiny—for stuff and for us. I am dedicated to ensuring that the communities hit hardest by climate impacts are an integral part of my process and opportunities.

Each week that passes while I'm in this learning phase and not producing material results, anxiety creeps in. Feeling doubtful whether anything I do will make a difference when we are working against so many powerful, evil forces doing way more damage. Then, when I least expect it, a new creative solution will surface or I'll receive a fortuitous introduction to someone thrilled to join this budding community. Turns out, joy of creation and collaboration is the antidote I've been searching for.