UPCYCLING USED ITEMS INTO ART

Upcycled Illumination

Discarded items turned into imaginative works of art

STORY BY DALONDO MOULTRIEPHOTOS BY FELICIA FRAZAR

Some folks can look at a thing and, whereas others see refuse, they can find the beauty in it. Such is the case with Liz Romero, development chair at the Seguin Art League. Romero is an artist who, for years now, has taken discarded items and turned them into works of art.

She’s always had an artistic flair even if she didn’t always exhibit it.

“I always say that I’ve been an artist my whole life except that I didn’t have time to make any art,” Romero said. “So when I retired, I retired from Guadalupe Regional Medical Center in 2012, and when I retired I joined the Art League and started taking some classes. I’ve been very involved in the Art League since then.”

In recent years, she has taken to making art out of recycled items. She calls it upcycling.

About three or four years ago, she did a piece in conjunction with a Guadalupe Valley Habitat for Humanity project using recycled materials, Romero said.

“I’m doing something different, now,” she said. “It’s really kind of funny. A lot of people would think it was silly.”

Romero takes used LED lightbulbs, paints and adorns them, and turns them into Christmas ornaments. Whether they’re traditionally-shaped bulbs or the more modern ones shaped, like the curly-Qs, Romero sees them and envisions images for which the bulbs maybe weren’t originally intended.

“The traditional lightbulb-shaped ones, I make these into snowmen,” she said. “The candelabra-shaped bulbs, I make them into little Christmas trees because they have a Christmas tree shape. I like the idea of recycling things like that or giving them a new life.”

“I took out one of those burned out lightbulbs one day and thought, ‘Hmm, that looks like a little snowman,’” she said. “I started decorating them, putting hats and little scarves on them. I think they came out pretty cute.”

Romero shares an affinity for reclaiming materials to turn into art with her fellow Art League members. She said members have been creating recycled art for years.

Shortly after the league bought the Klein Opera House building in 2014 at 104 S. Austin St., members began painting on pieces of wood reclaimed from the 1890s building.

“Each of these pieces is stamped on the back identifying it as reclaimed wood from the historic Seguin Opera House,” Romero said. “These pieces are small and work as Christmas tree ornaments or can be displayed on mini easels.”

Art League members sell their recycled art on Third Thursdays at the league and during Yulefest at the Seguin Events Center, she said.

Romero has sold a few of her lightbulb pieces as well. Proceeds go into the Art League’s treasury, Romero said.

Her art made from lightbulbs is made of glass-like fancier Christmas ornaments, though many of the nicer ones of those are old-fashioned blown glass. She has some handed down to her over the years that are beautiful and the ones she created may rival them in some ways, Romero said.

“It’s just giving a life to an old lightbulb,” she said. “I don’t know about other folks, but I have Christmas ornaments that were handed down to me by a great aunt; they’re the old-fashioned blown glass. They’re not the expensive ones that came from Germany but they’re pretty and they’ve lasted 50 years or more.

“I’m sure these lightbulbs will do the same.”