Fri 11/15 @4-8:30PM
No matter what you’re talking about, 27 tons of anything is, well, a lot. That’s the amount of waste Upcycle Parts Shop proudly advertises as having diverted from landfills since it started up five years ago.
The St. Clair Avenue operation is the area leader in sustainable art and craft supplies dedicated to provoking creativity and promoting community through reuse. Now the nonprofit is celebrating its fifth anniversary with a special ReCollection affair taking place November 15 at its St. Clair-Superior neighborhood location.
CoolCleveland talked to Upcycle Parts Shop co-founder and executive director Nicole McGee about the nonprofit’s sustainable art and crafts supplies operation, as well as ReCollection.
CoolCleveland: Tell us all about Upcycle Parts.
Nicole McGee: We’re an art supply retail shop, but everything is secondhand. That’s where we start. Then we also use those materials and do workshops, classes and hands-on programming with people. We’re part retail and part creative workshop. It’s all about sustainability and community building. All the materials we have in our shop have been donated to us from many sources, many people, many companies and businesses. In five years, we’ve taken in 27 tons of materials. These are leftovers finished from their first life such as commercial scrap, industrial leftovers, yarn, fabric or paper. So we make our shop look like a secondhand art supply store. We’re open three days a week for retail sales to the public. That’s sort of what we do. It can get confusing. Everything gets donated to us, so in that sense we’re diverting material from being thrown away.
CC: How has the arts community embraced Upcycle Parts?
NM: We’re gaining traction in that what we do is unique and people who are creative like what we offer. We love working with them; that’s includes in the education community as well. A lot of teachers are regular customers. Also, we’re starting to partner with St. Ed’s High School and John Carroll University. We have regular programs at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Great Lakes Science Center and Cleveland Public Library. We’ve done some programming with NASA. The past few years we’ve been growing into a fee-for-service model, as well as a place where people can come out. A lot of our customers come from suburban places.
CC: Congratulations on Upcycle Parts’ fifth anniversary.
NM: It’s very exciting for us, five years on St. Clair Avenue. That a big deal, and we haven’t gotten here alone. So this is our first time at this level sort of stopping and asking all of the people who have been a part of our past and our present to join us in recognizing our accomplishments.
CC: That leads us to ReCollection.
NM: We’re basically throwing a street party. We recognize it’s November, but the reason we’re saying that is because the place where we are and the neighborhoods around us have been a big part of our story, so we’re celebrating with them. It’s mostly a gallery show, which we’ve never done before, in partnership with our neighbor Santanna’s Art Gallery. There will also be musicians, a raffle and our shop will be open late some of our neighbors doing what they do — the [Slovenian] Museum & Archive will be showcasing a local Slovenian-American artist.
CC: Looking ahead, what does the next five years look like for Upcycle Parts?
NM: Our mission is to provoke creativity and promote community through reuse. We know that we’ll be doing that and growing stronger. I think it’s hard to say at this moment what the next five years will bring, but I know that it might be an expansion. Still, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We’ve been slow and small on purpose so far, but for sure we’ll be around in five years, and we’ll be celebrating even more for our 10thanniversary.
CC: Finally, who would enjoy attending ReCollection?
NM: This party is about us recognizing all of the people we work with, all of the people who helped us get to where we are and all of the people who want to figure out what we are and join us in the future. You can come after work and just get a flavor of what we are and how we work, or you can come a little later before you go out for the night. We think families, neighbors and community people — anybody who is a little bit curious and mysterious — should attend. If you’ve never been to Upcycle Parts, we won’t hold that against you. This is a perfect time to check it out.
[Written by John Benson]
Cleveland, OH 44103