Marsha Borden was among those cheering loudest when the state of Connecticut enacted a single use plastic bag fee in August, and when several area towns including her hometown of Guilford went a step further still by enacting an outright ban on plastic bags.

As an artist and teacher who uses her work to help educate people about environmental issues, Borden uses materials like plastic bags as part of her medium. Now that the fees and bans are in effect, she says there’s still plenty of room for improvement when it comes to plastics. Even so, she has her eye on a new target: textiles.

Working with upcycled textiles is a big area of interest for me right now,” says Borden, of Guilford. “This fall, I’m teaching workshops, locally and in New Haven, that help others learn how to repair and reuse the clothing and other textiles they already have, rather than throwing them out and going out and buying new stuff.”

As with plastics, Borden is on the cutting edge of a movement, one supported by scientific evidence that shows buying lots of cheap clothes just to discard them months later damages the environment, harms human health, and violates human rights.

How so?

Let the December 2018 issue of the journal Environmental Health count the ways: “Approximately 85 percent of the clothing Americans consume, nearly 3.8 billion pounds annually, is sent to landfills as solid waste, amounting to nearly 80 pounds per American per year...In the two decades since the fast-fashion business model became the norm for big-name fashion brands, increased demand for large amounts of inexpensive clothing has resulted in environmental and social degradation along each step of the supply chain.”

Reversing the damage being done by fast fashion will take time, effort, and education. Artists and artisans like Borden are happy to help with the education part, making upcycled and recycled clothing a sought-after part of art shows and a staple for some area retailers, who not only like being part of an environmental movement, but love the repurposed clothes because they’re cozy, fun, and soft. And they also love them for the stories they tell.

A New Purpose

Borden makes rugs with old curtains, creates wearable accessories with worn-out T-shirts, and mends old sweaters and jeans, giving them new life, she says.

“Rugs, drink coasters, necklaces, scarves, curtains, flowers, garlands, and table runners, to name just a few,” she says. “I use T-shirts, table linens, jeans, men’s dress shirts, sheets—really, anything I find that needs a new purpose and a new lease on life.”

Her work can be seen on her blog at www.marshamakes.blogspot.com. She also post photos of what she’s working on at her Instagram and Facebook. And, she’s teaching others to do the same, in the workshop Creative Reuse: Let’s Tackle Textile Waste on Sunday, Oct. 27 from noon to 4 p.m. at the Guilford Art Center (GAC), 411 Church Street, Guilford, 203-453-5947. Borden says she also would love to hear from other groups, organizations, and libraries who might be interested in hosting a class. She can be reached at mborden@omeansea.net.

“It’s all very accessible to everybody,” she says. “It’s environmentally conscious because you are keeping things out of landfills, and it’s fun, because you can create really cool, unique, one-of-a-kind mashups for yourself and your home.”

GAC also often features upcycled clothing at its annual arts and crafts fair in the summer, and it is offering upcycled works from two vendors two vendors in the Artistry Holiday Sale, which opens Friday, Nov. 1, with an opening reception that day in the shop and gallery, and runs through Jan. 5. The vendors are Baabaazuzu, which makes hats, mittens, and bags from vintage clothing (www.baabaazuzu.com) and Visual Treats, which makes scarves made from sweaters (joniulmanlewis.com).

“It’s important for GAC to support and share artist work that exhibits artistry and originality. The use of recycled materials adds to the character and beauty of each item. The fact that it is also environmentally-friendly is a bonus for sure,” says Lisa Ste. Marie of GAC.

An Old Philosopy, a New Movement

The importance of teaching others how to recycle and upcycle textiles, and other materials, is a driving philosophy at EcoWorks in North Haven.

Lisa Spetrini of West Haven helped found the creative reuse center as a project with her co-founders, starting small and doing craft fairs. They incorporated in 2013 and eventually moved into a project storefront with about 500 square feet in New Haven a couple of years ago. With the founders working as volunteers after they finished up their day jobs, they were open just two days a month. They did well enough to then move into a 1,600-square-foot space on State Street in New Haven. About a year ago they moved into their 2,300-square-foot space at 89 State Street in North Haven, their current location.

“It’s been a delight to be able to sprawl out and be all on one floor,” Spetrini says. “I think the space really dictated to us. We have garage bay door and warehouse and have full glass façade storefront, so we have a retail area in front area, and enough space to display our works.”

Spetrini, who calls herself a lifelong compulsive maker who loves to make something out of nothing, says she and her fellow volunteers at EcoWorks are passionate about what they are doing, and teaching others how to do it.

“We glean these perfectly good arts and crafts materials out of waste stream. Everything we have here is donated,” she says, adding that their center is modeled after other similar centers around the country, including North Carolina and Portland, Oregon. “This concept is really a movement to save these resources and get them into hands of creatives so we can make more beautiful and useful things, rather than having this all end up in a landfill.”

She correctly notes that the fashion industry is one of the larger polluters on the planet, and that the concept of fast fashion, where people buy cheap clothes just to discard them soon thereafter, is particularly toxic.

“We want to show people how they can make something completely new out of old things. My grandmother used to say, ‘Waste not, want not’” Spetrini says, laughing, and admits it sounds old-fashioned, but adds it’s an apt sentiment for this fast-growing reuse movement. “I think that really applies to everything.”

Waste Management, Education, Beautiful Clothes

On a recent Thursday evening, as Spetrini began her volunteer shift at EcoWorks’ boutique, ReBoutique, after a full day’s work at her day job, she looked around and listed some examples. There was clothing made from vintage slips, tablecloths, and doilies; hats and vests embellished with hardware; “boy into girl sweaters,” or large sweater chopped into smaller sweaters and stitched together with donated yarn; pillows made from fabric samples and vinyl samples; rugs made from climbing rope; and leather scrap made into jewelry.

She says it’s easy to see opportunity in “the endless stream of stuff.”

“But you have to be careful. You can become an indoor landfill quickly if you don’t curate stuff. That’s the important thing,” Spetrini says. “If we are not a good fit with something, we do find it a good home elsewhere.”

Part of the goal at EcoWorks is making beautiful clothes, art, and other objects. And it’s about waste management and education.

“We are a teaching organization. We want to foster the creatives that are sitting in their studios, and we want to build creatives from day one in the public school system, teach them creative problem solving and creative thinking skills,” Spetrini says. “If a teacher is teaching counting with multi-colored buttons or tile samples, that is a goal as valid as providing access to low-cost oil crayons. We are not just serving those who are privileged to be creatives, we are about creating an opportunity for everyone at every level to think differently, and not to learn just by rote, but also through creative play.”

She encourages anyone who is interested to stop in and check out the boutique, and to consider taking a class or workshop to find out more about using scrap material, waste reduction, and reuse.

“Most of our classes are at the introduction level, suitable for people with varying skills. We have workshops and we have one-on-ones with teaching artists,” she says.

And the opportunities are not limited to just textiles. They recently offered a class on creating a garden gazing ball from a bowling ball.

“It wasn’t hard at all, it was verbal instruction, and it just required patience,” she says.

Cultivating patience and focus is another benefit of the recycling and upcycling way of life, Spetrini says.

“This is the digital age and finding something that can hold your attention is so important. We see that in the community working with children. They need to learn patience and their hand-to-eye coordination needs to be developed. We really need to have more art classes for them, to let them just slow it down,” she says. “You don’t know how meditative sewing by hand can be until you do it.”

A Reason to Be

Upcycled and recycled clothing also is becoming more common among some local retailers.

At Lark in Chester, owner Suzie Woodward is using recycling and upcycling techniques to create comfy clothes with a story. She also sells stuffed animals made from recycled materials, made by one of her employees.

“I get vintage flannels and put them through a washing and softening process to make them like the favorites I pull out of my closet after years and years of use. They are cozy and soft and take the chill off. I came up with a way of softening the top, making them more of a peasant style,” she says.

Creating those became an extension of Lark and she calls the line of clothing Lime Green Truck, after her husband’s 1972 F100.

“It’s already broken in. We call her Ginger,” she says. “She’s happiest when she’s in service and she already has bumps and nicks and flaws, and that’s what we love about the truck.”

The line has become so successful, that she has a maker working for her doing some of the work.

“It makes use of what we already have and it lends itself to that vintage soft comfortable feel,” Woodward says.

Her employee, Kathleen Whitbread of East Haddam, has created a line of stuffed animals, also from old clothes, that she’s selling. She started when she was a teenager, making a hedgehog out of an old beloved coat.

Woodward says she’s developed an eye for old things that she can recyle, upcycle, and rehome, pretty things with an interesting backstory, and, rather than fast fashion, clothes that people will treasure for a lifetime.