IUPcycle Aotearoa

Who remembers this iconic chair? $140 . Can deliver for petrol cost

@ Cuba D**a Come down to S&Ms

Tuesday 14 March

It is with some trepidation that I await my first session with Helena for Upcycling. A few months ago I had the pleasure of visiting her bach in Foxton and saw a range of very trendy looking pieces of furniture that had all been upcycled by her. A friend had met with another ‘upcycler’ and had used the term ‘recycling.’ Apparently this is like calling a vegan a vegetarian and for my friend, she got a robust rebuttal of why Upcycling is not recycling. I will have to ask Helena what she thinks.

What I think is this, while there is a spectrum of reusing and repurposing things, recycling and upcycling are uniquely different. My interpretation is recycling is all about putting the ‘whole’ object into another purpose, e.g. your plastic bags can be turned into a product that creates public furniture, your old clothes can go to the Charity Shop. What Upcycling means to me today (might be different after my intro session with Helena tomorrow night) is that you get your owned object that you might be considering ditching, and you create something new and beautiful with it. So rather than ‘throw or gift away’ we ‘improve and keep it.’

I cast my eyes around my house and while I have an idea of an object that might fit the bill for this Upcycling, I am going to leave my options open. I just want to learn the kaupapa of it all and then let my eyes and heart do the wandering. I know Helena has and can create the most beautiful stencils that you can use to ornate chairs, drawers, tables and other things. I saw wonderful examples of them in her home and I am sure a google would find me awash with beautiful concepts and images in the Upcycling world. What I like is the steam punkyness of these objects. There is something uniquely beautiful about them. You want to touch them, use them and reference possible intimate thoughts or experiences with them. For examply I am a bit crazy about frogs. I wonder if I can ‘frog up’ a stool or chair. But someone else may have old family images that can be turned into stencils that you layer over the top of a set of drawers. Wouldn’t that be something to pass onto the kids?

But you are talking to a person who is not a self-described ‘handywoman’ here. I am not known for my DIY projects so I am a little scared of what Helena may want me to do.

My super glue dries up, my nails get bent and my out of reach lights don’t seem to get changed. I look forward to how Helena will inspire my inner MacGiver, my unknown Michaelangelo, my crafty #8 wire soul.

I have two hours with her and several other women on Wednesday night. Let’s see what happens.

Thursday 16 March
Walking into Helena’s Te Aro garage is like walking into a new world. A world influenced by Steam Punk, a junk yard, a millennary shop and a mad hatters workshop. It is her playpen and when you see Helena in her playpen you see a whole new dynamic person.

There are odd ‘feet shapes’ used by people who make shoes (gee I even forget the name to describe these people shoe makers); there is a child’s pram upcycled to be a mobile jewelry shop; an upcycled tea trolley to be a booze trolley resplendent with upcycled bugle and a rake to hold the wine glasses. It is a child’s fantasy and a mother’s nightmare (as the objects a child might use inappropriately are many). It is a handy persons dream. There are sharp cutting objects, glue of all kinds, a staple gun and most importantly a large table for us all to sit around and fantasise over.

Simply by being in this garage one can instantly grasp what Upcycling is all about. There were two other women there, equally as green as I was before we entered the door. We started off by making a key ring out of a stash of belts Helena must have picked up on Trademe or maybe even a dump. Perfectly good black mens belts, now, with letter stamps, a new key ring. A nice start to our induction evening.

As we chatted, looked at her wonderful photos on the walls (Helena has entered WOW seven times and got a commended once I think) and began to get inspired about the possibilities of upcycling, my modest thought, to upgrade a very small wooded corner cabinet, began to fly, and before you knew it, I had planned to upcycle my four kitchen chairs. To be very honest, in the back of my head I was thinking that I would donate them to the local charity shop. Purchased maybe six years ago, they were a cheapish vinyl and our various kittens then cats, had created sharp tears across the whole body of the chairs. When it became embarrassing I went to Briscoes and purchased some relatively cheap red synthetic covers to put over them. Then one of of the chairs seemed to tear loose at a join and I worried that it would break. I had them lined up for ruination or donation. But after chatting with Helena, who showed me all these wonderful colourful swathes of high use, water proof, UV resistant outdoor material that she got from my local Pete’s Emporium, my plans became more audacious. It was Project Reupholster my kitchen chairs!

Nothing is wasted in Helena’s Upcycled world. The bric a brac in her garage may not have a purpose today, but it will one day. And that is Helena’s passion. Her eyes shine with the beauty that can be created from two disparate objects hitting each other. It is like her eyes look down a microscope at molecules lining up to create some new bacteria. In her case, the molecules might be an old grater being turned into an ear ring holder or ‘distressing’ or image transferring amazing art onto boring looking tables. It might be a discarded tin box turned into a wall shelf. It might be an old side table created out of wooden off cuts, carefully layered with your grand childs’ laminated artworks. She can create a hotch potch of goodness out of the most unbelievably useless tat! That is coming from my eyes. Helena’s eyes are veritable X-rays into the soul of created things.

She can look into the soul of an object, love that object and the hard time it has had on earth and say “why ditch this pole/cabinet/cloth/thingy as it can be turned into a thing of unique functional ability.” And she can inspire others to do so as well. She made me think of trying to create the ‘ideal handbag.’ Women and handbags, we get em, we use em and then we find something wrong with em. Then we discard them or give them to our best friend or charity. My putative project simmering is to create my perfect, unobtainable hand bag.

But back to the chairs. I finished my first two hours of Upcycle induction with a plan. To go to Pete’s Emporium in Lower Hutt (a place I had never visited, what a loss) and buy some of the fantastic cloth to cover my chairs.

Sunday 2 April

Since attending the fantastic evening of Upcycling education several things happened. One – I cannot stop looking around my home to see what I might repurpose. Two – I have a lingering sense of going into op shops and finding materials that might be used in my plight to Upcycle things and Three – I attended WOMAD in New Plymouth. You couldn’t want a better festival than WOMAD with its emphasis on zero waste, the imaginative repurposing of things, wonderful music bikes made up of an orchestra of add ons that moves musically through populated lanes, repurposed and upcycled clothing, glasses made of wood, the plethora of things upcycled is amazing! It was while I had a morning free in New Plymouth that I visited a second hand shop and came across the most lush black velvet cut off for $20 that I could not resist buying. Also there I found an oriental print in red that I thought might be matched against the velvet for my chairs. Then, just before I went to the final day of Upcycling in Helen’a now famous garage, I went to Pete’s Emporium for the very first time. When Helena had spoken about Pete’s in the past, she did so with an almost romantic quiver to her voice. Her eyes would look upwards at the endless possibilities to be found there. Upon entering this Emporium it did not take long to find out why Helena loved the place. There were swathes of amazing materials, tassles, bits and bobs of all hue and kind. A veritable treasure chest of Upcycling possibilities. I soon found the material I had seen at the evening meeting and bought 4 meters of it. I also found some rainbow material and got some of that. These were high class materials used for exterior decking chairs, colour UV resistant and the designs superb. So it was with a sense of earned righteousness that I showed up on our 4-6 hour day to DO THE UPCYCLING. I had my four ratty red, pock marked and scatched kitchen chairs in my car. Another women had a rather lovely but worse for wear Ottoman she wanted to repurpose into a coffee table. They had started before me and the distinct smell of Shellac greeted me on my arrival. Helena worked across several of us with our pet Upcyling projects and her manner is to empower not overtake. She will show you and guide you, her purpose is that you do 80% of the work so that at the end of the day it is your upcycling, not hers. She has ideas, but it is your decision, your innate artistic ideas that will create your unique repurposed or upgraded item. I fell in love with a staple gun. What Helena can’t do with a staple gun is not worth knowing. She wields it as a gun slinger does their pistol. She is a quick draw stapler who can go at a rapid pace. It was this skill above all that Helena taught me and was utilised to recover my kitchen chairs. While I had the velvet and oriental materials with me, it was the Pete’s special material that won on the day. As I have two clawry cats I went with the strongest, most durable cat resistant materials and fashioned similar covers for all the chairs. The first one took the longest of course, but once we had the material layout figured out, the rhythmic beat of the staple gun was the deal breaker to make my kitchen chairs look mod and new again.

What was interesting throughout the day were the visitors to the garage. These were not ‘invited’ guests, but curious passers by who could not resist the homely yet intriguing environment of Helena’s cave. There were elderly couples excited to see past objects reminiscent from their lives repurposed or waiting to be given a new life. There were home handy people simply inspired by watching us like Santa’s elves on a sunny afternoon. There were people who volunteered objects they had sitting around in what would be future liaisons with Helena as they saw in her a kindred spirit that would treasure their past objects and do something to bring them into the future with integrity. In fact perhaps an alternative description for Upcycling could be ‘bringing past objects into the future with integrity.’

My day ended with a sore wrist and hand from the important staple gun, tired muscles from the angles I had to hold the chair at, but a sense of great achievement. I am not a natural fix it person, a delusional home handy person with multiple plans or jobs on the go, but for one day, I can proudly say I was. I got in touch with my inner fix it guru and created some rather attractive kitchen chairs that now sit proudly in my dining area. Not the tip for these creatures, rather a new life of repurposeness!

The lovely Steampunkers hung out at Cuba Duper

Check out this gorgeous coffee table that was an ottoman upcycled today at my first makers day workshop. Stephanie Garvey u rock!

For sale $60