TRASH NYC

ALANE GOLDEN - backstory
B: June197-something
"A woman who tells your her age will tell you anything." - Richard Hayden, AIA, FAIA

Ever since I can remember, lovingly restored "used" & recycled items have played an important role in my family life. From my Mum's humble first home beginnings in a converted WWII army barracks, to the super cool robins egg blue rocking horse she bartered for her two-year old @ a swap meet in CA. It remains the coolest horse I have ever saddled & conjures those wonderful childhood memories we all treasure.

In my experience, the cornerstone to using repurposed & thrown-out decor lies in the meat of the old adage, "Necessity is the Mother of invention." For example, in 1949, buying an old army barracks was not a ”cool" thing to do, or thought of by my grandparents as merely a "side project". They were young, newly married with a small child and simply in need of a h-o-m-e. Recycling anything, takes openness of mind, a pioneering spirit & the ability to see potential possibilities and the beauty in things abandoned. After all, "One man's trash is another's treasure."

North America is the only country I have ever lived in which we literally discard perfectly good things in the quest for that next something new - perceived as "better". It wasn't always this way - we weren't always this way. As children of the Great Depression, my Grandparents were no strangers to the mass poverty encircling the U.S. In fact, the postwar "boom" of the 1950's was partially a result of one of my favourite U.S. Presidents'. If not for Franklin Roosevelt's social efforts to pull America out of our depths of despair, we would not have the many foundations we so take for granted today.

One such program created was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). As a team, members of the CCC, men throughout the country were given working opportunities with the building of state parks and the clearing / building of roads. Because of these massive social efforts, thousands of unemployed men who were willing and able to work were finally afforded the opportunity to learn very useful carpentry skills and more importantly, were given back their dignity and self-worth. My Grandfather was one of those men. He took the skills learned during his time in the CCC and passed them onto my Mum, who, in turn, passed them to her daughters.

Stemming from the "poor but proud" mentality drilled into me from circumstances of birth, home was my central place of refuge - a respite from the harsh realities of the outside world. It was the most important place of both escape & soul replenishment. Quite literally, it was the safe, loving space that housed my heart, my hopes, my dreams - a place where all of those embarrassing, painful, happy & most memorable childhood "firsts" occurred. Growing up in a single-parent family was my reality, but never one neither I, nor my sister ever thought strange or sad. In fact, it was fun. Without a father around to do the "manly" things I can only imagine fathers doing, we girls were left to figure things out ourselves. We had inherited our Grandfather's tools and knowledge, a strong sense of self-worth, combined with that wonderful childhood inability to recognize that we were actually poor and henceforth, only option "do-it-yourselfers" (DIYers).

Every household "issue" turned into an adventure in creative problem solving - a game we learned to play rather well. I recall the final collective decision that the horrific 1970's split-pea green wall-to-wall carpeting, the terrible dark chintz plywood paneling and the very scary period wall-paper featured throughout our humble tract home had to go. It was on one of our Friday "family nights" sometime in the 1980's featuring our Mum seated at her beloved childhood piano, with my sister and I singing and dancing in our "formal" living room. During a popcorn break, a heretofore unmentioned ambitious kid decided to verbalize her distinct distaste for our helpless decor. It had, after all, not been our decision, but the green was simply nauseating and the cheap paneling looked like a scene from any number of bad porno-films. We all agreed on the tragic need for an update and immediately set about with a grand plan for our re-design.

Being as thrifty and multi-tasking as they come, our Mum laid out the game plan. My sister and I were to go through our possessions and separate items with which we were willing to part for this much needed interior re-design. After passionately cleaning our rooms, garage and attack, we moved onto our grand mum’s shed and attic - desperate for any and all things unwanted. We even managed to gain access into her neighbor's homes for sale donations. All of the booty was then sorted into groupings and pooled into a tidy collection in our garage. After a concerted effort to convince our neighbors that they too needed to clean out their spaces for some cash, we embarked on our annual summer garage sale. However, for the first time, we combined our resources and shared in a collective pooling of advertising costs with our neighbors. And this garage sale also differed because we were not keeping money earned on the sale of our items individually, we were combining our booty to create a decor budget. With a gang of kids on bikes at the ready, we additionally plastered the neighborhood with hand-drawn posters promoting our sensational neighborhood garage sale. In our minds, it held top billing as the hottest event of the summer - a must attend.

We earned a record amount from our efforts & in the process, created a community event that was to be held for years to come by my family with our neighbors. The funds earned allowed for our much needed DIY re-do. Looking back, it was a great exercise in problem-solving, teamwork, fitness, and organization. It was both healthy and productive and about as fine an example of people working together as a community as I can recall. It also taught me very early about finding alternative ways to get something I desired and from idea to execution, how to realize a dream utilizing the things I already possessed - ideas, resolution, determination & finally, trash. Throughout the years, this collective experience has served me well & I even repeated the very same capital raising effort in 1998 when in need of funding to return to Australia. Of course, by this time, I was a seasoned pro with a BA in Journalism - Advertising, Marketing & PR and this time netted over $2000.00.

It is in this same passionate sentimentality that garage / yard sales; thrift stores; second-hand & charity shops; swap meets; church fundraisers; auctions; antique stores; street finds; dumpster-diving and now the worldwide modern equivalent - eBay, have and continue to drive, the main focus of my interior aesthetic. I love homes and spaces and am obsessed with finding and repurposing used and castaway items to create unique environs. Each and every thing I uncover not only has great patina that only many years afford, but more importantly, each has its own story. From the initial discovery, to the repurposing of an item once used as something else and thrown out, only to be rescued and lovingly restored, I am hooked on trash. I have lived internationally and been a student in the study of the discarded - from the U.S., UK, Switzerland, Italy and even Australia and New Zealand. The more places I live, the more I learn my obsession with trash and the repurposing of it is more common than once thought. Rather, it seems to be an inherently human condition and lifestyle led by numerous people throughout the world. Hell, even my cat has been recycled from the gritty streets of New York City - now that's true walking the walk!

It is from Staten Island, NYC - home to both the Arthur Kills dump (one of the largest manmade creations that can be viewed from outer space) - and to the 3000sf loft (a recycled former grain storage warehouse) I share with my creative partner of nearly 20 years, that I write. We have created this TRASH N.Y.C. blog for those of you who are unable to pass curbside castaways without getting that giddy, hopeful feeling in the pit of your tummy because the potential to uncover something wonderful is literally right around each corner. In our case, New York City has been our playground for over seven years and is the place which brings us our inspiration and many discarded treasures. NYC's rubbish is just like its people - diverse and one-of-a-kind. Through this site, it is our hopes that we will be able to entertain, inform and share our lifelong trash passion with you all. Enjoy!

Check it out for yourself: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eyewash/sets/72057594069126663/