Repurposing Quotes

I'm a big fan of Amy Sedaris, and one of her decorating mainstays is to put googly eyes on everything.

I just thought it made sense to call a book 'Not Garbage,' even though the majority of it was going to be the scraps from people's studios; like newspaper clippings, weird drawings and stuff they might not necessarily show as artists.

I don't collect things per se, but I do pick up things as I go. Like, in my studio I have an old sewing machine from Germany that my dad gave me, and then something else that I got from a friend in India, and a piece of flooring from one of my shows.

There is a use for almost everything.

I shop at thrift stores and consignment shoppes. I wear my clothes as is, and maybe get them dry cleaned whenever possible.

I like doing stuff like, for instance, in the 'Leave the Night On' video, I had on a plain white T-shirt. I just wanted to do something to it to make it a little different, so I just cut a big strip out of the side, from the shirttail up to my armpit, and cut a big red strip out of another T-shirt and just sewed it in there.

I have always been interested in materials and in transforming them.

I'm not really frightened by experimenting - that's the main thing. I really like mixing very old beautiful pieces that are from thrift shops or that have some historical value with quite new futuristic things.

About 90 percent of the pieces in my home are vintage, and I'm a ruthless editor. I only live with things that I love. There is not one thing in my home that doesn't have meaning to me.

One man's trash is another man's treasure is a third man's raw materials for their planet-buster earthquake machine.

Buying found objects means repurposing something that was already made years before, sometimes decades before. It strikes a nice balance between the new and used equation we should strive for in our lives.

When it comes to a vintage store, we're not concerned with men's or women's. I want you to treat it like no other store. Just find stuff that you love and go for that.

New things had to be made out of fragments.

Every trick is an old one, but with a change of players, a change of dress, it comes out as new as before.

I take things that are worn out through overuse, that have become cliches - like the shed, a traditional place of rest and retreat - and I give them a more incandescent future.

Archives can be inspiring but overwhelming. You have to forget them - especially when the whole world has been knocking them off. Everyone shops the same flea markets.

I work with things left over from other things.

I look for things that are left of center, something you've only seen your whole life, but never heard. Hit it! With a stick! I have a guitar made out of a 2x4 that I bought in Cleveland.

I'm like the king of the low-budget sequel. People ask, 'What film are you gonna do next?' 'I don't know, but it's probably got a 3 or 4 in the title.'

Remakes are happening for a long time, and it is happening in the West, too. I don't believe anything is wrong in that.

I love taking prints, embroidery, appliques - precious things that seem to be from another time - and using them to create a contemporary, new story.

A lot of art and visual crafts are based on appropriating things.

If I'm going to try and find something, I stick to the flea markets, or I pull hand-me-downs from my family because I like pieces to have stories.

I've been using carrot tops to make pesto and broccoli stalks to make broccoli 'rice.' There's no reason to throw those things away - just get creative.

Your garbage, transformed, is your gift.