Artist Spotlight: Janet Bernson
Each month, we highlight one of the talented artists in our reuse community. This month, it’s multi-media and self-proclaimed trash artist, Janet Bernson!
Janet was a Monday Morning regular at our Linc location, helping us to process all the tiny odds and ends that get donated to the center. Read below to learn more about where she gets her inspiration and why she chooses to reuse!
1. When did you start making visual art?
I was a teenager! My art teacher in Van Nuys California, unbeknownst to me, submitted my assemblage to the National Youth Arts Competition. The piece was a wooden hat block with watch parts for the brain that moved. Surprise… I won! The rest is my herstory.
2. Which aspect of creating is your favorite?
Putting unusual things together to form something different. I love the process of imagination meeting implementation.
3. Where do you get your inspiration?
I play with words… Mostly idiomatic language. Often times these will inspire me to create visual pieces with trash/reuse materials. Other times I write - blogs, plays, poetry, books. It’s all energy.
4. What is your preferred way to engage with your audience?
Many of my pieces have stories or poems etc. that accompany them. Often the picture is the engagement itself. I have been known to speak as people enter an exhibit space about the state of our planet. I try not to lecture but I’m willing to inform. I speak to small and large groups about reuse. I call it “Trashformation”.
5. How does reuse play a part in your creativity?
I’m an old eco warrior. I’ve been using trash as a learning tool, especially with survivors of trauma for many years. I tell them that everything can be transformed, even their worst experience, through conscious choice and by using the arts.
6. What compels you to donate to ACR?
I come from the generation of kids whose parents/grandparents experienced the depression. My grandmother and mother would never use just a part of a piece of paper- they’d use front and back, when a cereal box was empty it would be transformed into holding extra paper, pencils etc. All the buffalo was a household motto. We would always reuse just about everything. I’m not a hoarder but anything that I have that I know I’m not going to use I know that somebody else will be able to use it…it goes to ACR.
7. Do you have a favorite ACR find? How did you use it?
This is unrelated to my art but perhaps The most important thing I bought, over three years worth, was card stock. I’m part of a group of progressives who wrote many thousands of postcards to businesses, individuals and politicians! Other than that my favorite area is the Bucket Zone.
8. Where can we find out more about your work.
My arts site is janetbernson.com
Instagram: @janet_bernson_artist
