I'm always concerned by the rampant drive for consumption that leads life around by the nose, and love the RJM process because I feel like it references consumption but focuses on reuse in a positive way. I've always been interested in appropriation because of the rich possibilities for conceptual overlay. Tibor Kalman's book "unfashion" is a book consisting of images Kalman took while traveling over his lifetime and there are so many instances of objects given a new life and new meaning and excitement through reapplication.  

So, when my box came, I was super excited. Opened it and went quickly through everything and then became disappointed - there was too much stuff that didn't resonate with me and which I didn't like, or thought of as cheap.  After a moment of embarrassment for that response, I Iaid all the objects out on my work table and started sorting, shifting and sliding the objects around. I quickly made a pile of things that I couldn't work with. They might have been detritus from a past RJM, or a color or surface that I didn't like. I ended up with a smaller grouping and reconsidered them. I realized that I needed to look a little closer at the possibilities for modification of each object. It is easy to take things apart and then put them back together in a new configuration, but to take them apart, reshape and reconstruct allows for more potential.

I'm trying to keep my material use predominantly recycled objects. So at this point I'm working with recycled clothing, laser cut as the base layer and then building up. I want these pieces to feel clean and crisp and new, even though the materials are all reused.

Professor Julia Barello is the Academic Department Head at the New Mexico State University Department of Art.  She is a practicing artist who creates small scale jewelry and multi-layered, large-scale wall installations constructed from recycled medical imaging film, translated into intricately cut, semi-transparent shapes. These works have been exhibited internationally at the Kaohsiung Museum in Taiwan, Museum Fur Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany, Castello Sforzesco in Milan, Italy, and Musee des Arts Decoratif de Montreal, Canada, as well as in numerous national venues.  Her work has been collected by the Museum of Art and Design in New York and is on permanent display at institutions including Harvard’s Boston Children’s Hospital, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire, and BioMarin in California.