Jennifer Johne’s dream job is to be artist in residence at a landfill site. Johne recalls a visit to the Collingwood landfill several yearsago, “I spotted an oak framed mirror and a bunch of antique picture frames which were in excellent shape. While I was looking at them, a member of the dump staff came along and crushed them with a backhoe, then proceeded to follow me around to make sure I wasn’t taking anything. I was so shocked and angered that I made it my mission to “liberate” stuff whenever I could.”
Where other people may see junk, Johne sees potential. Her exhibit at Station on the Green this weekend entitled I Will Not Let You Waste Away features pieces crafted from other people’s castoffs, including a wedding gown. An old silk dress she found at a thrift shop for $11 is trimmed with dozens of doilies – many of them from a box which she inherited while cleaning out her late mother’s house.
“These doilies represent incredible skill and beauty and hundreds of hours of work by the hands of previous generations,” said Johne.
“At first I felt weighed down by all the stuff I inherited, but once I found a way to repurpose it, these things were given new meaning.”
“I also had a huge box of photographs,” she says, “and was wondering what do I do with all these pictures of people I don’t know. Then I started cutting them down to make new images and thought, “Wow! Look at all these incredible colours.”
Johne says she has been repurposing things as long as she can remember. She was influenced by her grandmother who lived through the Great Depression, and her mother who grew up with rationing during the Second World War. As a child she would use scraps of fabric from their sewing projects to make clothes for her Barbie dolls. Eventually, she found herself at the Ontario College of Design – just before it became OCAD. She intended to pursue interdisciplinary studies but that program was axed so she wound up creating her own program, and graduating with nearly enough credits for two degrees.
“I started with design, and then did industrial design, photography, jewellery and ceramics,” said Johne.
“About the only classes I didn’t take were drawing and painting.”
While Johne had never tried painting, she had signed her daughter up for classes, and hence had some oil paints lying around. When she saw an ad for the Purple Hills Arts and Heritage Society’s 10 x 10 art show during the pandemic, she was inspired to give painting a try. Fast forward to the 2023 Creemore Festival of the Arts, Johne was set up at the Creemore Jail, where she did a series of “wanted” posters featuring oil portraits of people who had done good things.
Johne’s home is full of rescued treasures, including the Singer Featherweight sewing machine on which she sewed the wedding dress.
“So much stuff gets thrown out, and it doesn’t make sense on so many levels,” she said. “Our landfills are running out of room and people are struggling with the cost of living yet this stuff gets thrown out and not put to use.”
Johne says there has to be a way to take useful things out of the waste stream.
“If you have people paying to drop things at a landfill, and other people paying to take them away, this could actually be a money maker for the municipality,” she said.
She hopes her work will inspire people to rethink their ideas about waste.
“Finding new ways to use things can totally change the way you feel about them,” said Johne. “They go from being a burden to something that brings you joy.”
- I Will Not Let You Waste Away will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Oct. 5 and 6 at Creemore Station on the Green, located at 10 Caroline St. E.