Eco Artist Spotlight: Janna Bissett

I will occasionally be featuring artists on this blog whose work embraces the idea of reuse of materials. Today, I’d like you to meet Michigan artist, jewelry maker, fiber artist, and photographer Janna Bissett. Multitalented to the extreme, Janna blogs at LilacPOP Exploring Art and The Handmade Object, runs not one but two Etsy shops, and is always coming up with new ways to express her amazing artistic vision.

According to her website, “All of my work revolves around my love of taking old or discarded things and making them either beautiful or thought of in a different way.”

Janna’s body of work is as amazing and diverse as her talents, but what caught my attention recently, were these wonderful earrings she listed in her Etsy shop,  LilacPOP, that she created from discarded plastic pill bottles. (that’s the lovely Janna herself modeling them above).

Janna explains, “Basically, pill bottles are something we all have in our homes and they get thrown away and it bothered me. So now people are giving me all their empty pill bottles (I am really on the look out for unusual colors). It took quite a few different tries to get them cut nicely. First I tried using my dremel but it melted the plastic and left big gobs of melted plastic stuck to the edges. Then I used my jewelry saw and that worked ok but the blades kept breaking. I use a miter saw now but I have to use a razor blade when I am done to scrape the sides to get all the little peelies off. A plain old razor blade works well but it’s really hard to keep the lines straight. It’s all about experimenting—but that’s the part that I love!”Kathleen here: I love how the act of repurposing discarded materials really challenges us as artists to innovate new techniques to work with them. It can be a real challenge, as Janna mentions, but so much fun! I really admire the inspired thought process that enabled Janna to create something beautiful and functional out of an item that most people would throw away!

Check out this beautiful necklace she also made from recycled pill bottles and beads:

Be sure to visit Janna’s blog, LilacPOP Exploring Art and The Handmade Object , where you can learn more about her, and her many creative endeavors. Also, you can find Janna’s Recycled Pill Bottle Jewelry and so much more in her Etsy shops, LilacPOP and LilacPOP Photography.

Thank you, Janna, for allowing me to share your eco-friendly work with my readers!