Andrea Kaiser and "Trash Art"

By Andrea Kaiser: Artist and TikTok Creator

In my junior year of high school, I took AP art. When the Coronavirus hit in March our whole class was thrown for a loop. Many students didn’t have supplies at home and couldn’t pick any up from school until they were cleared to. However, my art teacher had a great project to keep us creating. She instructed us to go on a walk and pick up 10 random things from outside. She then told us to find 10 small objects in our house as well. We then had to combine our 20 objects into an art piece. Many students picked up leaves and pinecones from outside to create their art pieces. However, I felt more drawn to pick up the rusty old screws and crumpled up candy bar wrappers. I made an abstract piece by gluing the trash all over my canvas in shapes of flowers and leaves. When I turned in my piece, my teacher gave me extra credit! I thought this was such a fun and creative way to clean up around my neighborhood.

About a month after this project was assigned, my TikTok began to gain attention. From the start, I've wanted my account to be a positive place. When thinking of video ideas, I thought back to the project I was assigned in March. I decided it would be cool to make a video of me doing a similar project, except this time I only used trash found from outside. I walked around my neighborhood and found Splenda packs, water bottles, and a LOT of other trash. When I came home, I made flowers on a canvas out of my findings. I glued trash around the background as well and put what I didn't use in the garbage. I decided to call this “Trash Art.” I hope to do these walks more often and continue to recycle litter into art.

When I posted the video many people commented saying that they wanted to try it out too. These comments made me fill with joy. I’m so glad that I have a platform that can inspire people to do good.  Doing things like body positivity paintings and creating my trash art makes me feel like I am using my platform to spread important and positive messages - which I feel is every creator's job.