Recycling Circuit Boards

Before I got my own studio at Spanish Village, one of the other artists had invited me to join her in her studio. At the Village, I would be called a partner, although the terms is actually used incorrectly in a legal sense. Those of us who are partners are actually tenants of the tenant, sort of like sub-lessees. Since she is having her studio remodeled, I agreed to help her keep her studio open. But the remodeling begins next week. So I'll begin spending time in my own studio, that is until I take a few days off to go to the desert with my parents. But after we return, I will open my studio the full five days per week required by the City. I don't know when the repairs will begin, and I'm tired of waiting. I know I will have to move everything when work does begin, and so I won't bring everything over from the house, but a fair amount.

I did take a small desk over that I had here at home. And I had a metal cabinet in the studio where I expected to become a partner. Because the remodeling begins, I needed to move that cabinet over. I placed it to the right of the door, so it won't be very visible. Actually, now it's the same color as the wall, so it really blends right in. It will be a good storage cabinet. I may get rid of it eventually, but I'll use it for now.

When we moved the cabinet this evening, I spent some time in the studio, beginning to straighten up from the weekend frenzy of preparing for the Small Image Show. As I was cleaning up, I started fiddling around with some of the cellphone innards that I have, a whole box from a friend who worked in a cellphone store. I started taking apart the pieces and considering the possibility of cutting some of the little circuit boards to use on pins.

I remembered how my husband and I use to go to the swapmeet on the third Saturday of the month, when the sellers brought all their old computer parts and we use to buy stuff. Then we assembled all those old pieces into computers. We were taking a class at the Adult Education Complex, learning to build and repair computers. We learned alot. Sometimes we'd see our instructor at the swapmeet with his wife and we'd have fun chatting. And I always looked at the circuit boards and thought they'd make great artwork.

That instructor is dead along with my husband. And when I was cleaning out things in the house, I threw out a whole lot of old circuit boards and cables and hard drives and who knows what else. I wish I had them back now to use for jewelry. But who knows, maybe that swapmeet still exists. I could go back, take someone else this time.