Thanks,
Marilyn J. Brackney
Artist/Teacher

In managing solid waste, the preferred order of handling it is to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Marilyn Brackney has reused materials since the beginning of her career as an artist and educator. While working as a public school teacher, she often resorted to using solid waste as art materials when she had no money to buy conventional supplies. She launched her art/reuse Web site, The Imagination Factory, in 1996, and since then, millions of people have visited, looking for inexpensive art ideas or ways to encourage kids to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Children’s Web Site Encourages Creative Reuse

If you were to search for the word imagination on Google, it’s likely that The Imagination Factory will be linked near the top of the millions of entries. Listed by the American Library Association as one of the best online resources for kids, the award winning site shows visitors how to make art using materials most people throw away. Some of the activities include drawing, painting, sculpture, collage, paper mache, marbling, and crafts.

A Trash Matcher links visitors with appropriate art activities that use the solid waste they have available, and a feature called the Badge Matcher allows Brownies, Girl Scouts and their leaders to quickly locate projects that help satisfy badge requirements. Visitors also learn how reusing materials can help save energy, natural resources, and landfill space. Trashasaurus Rex, a giant dinosaur made of everything from used toothpaste tubes to odd gloves serves as the site’s mascot.

Just introduced is a “Members Only” section, which includes twenty, new art/reuse activities, and a quarterly newsletter that provides ideas for saving money and Mother Earth. Members also have access to The Green Gallery, a showcase of art and fine crafts created by professional artists who reuse and recycle materials. Artwork featured includes assemblage, collage, dollmaking, fiber arts, furniture, jewelry, marbling, metalwork, mosaics, sculpture, and weaving.

Online for twelve years, The Imagination Factory was created by artist and teacher, Marilyn Brackney. A longtime advocate of reuse, she’s encouraged children to create art from solid waste since the first Earth Day celebration in 1970. She thinks teaching kids to reuse materials is a fun and entertaining way to foster environmental responsibility.

Brackney says, “I’m pleased to see that adults are starting to reuse and recycle, but I focus my attention on children, because they will more easily adopt these habits and incorporate them into their lifestyles. Kids are the ones who will make a difference in helping to save the environment.” The Imagination Factory is located at http://www.kid-at-art.com/.

It’s timely too – my two nephews are visiting this week, and the older one sometimes says he is bored.

I remember my brother and I inventing our own games with empty cardboard boxes and things.