Dump site blooms with beauty
Shana Jarrett poses with a few of her art pieces at the Garfield Bay dump site. She’s been making a name for herself since she took the job about a year ago. (Photos by CONOR CHRISTOFFERSON)
SAGLE — It’s not exactly the Louvre, but one woman’s quirky, ornate creations have turned a local garbage dump into the area’s newest must-see art gallery.
If you don’t think garbage can become art, you haven’t seen the work of Shana Jarrett, the artist in residence at the Garfield Bay dump. Jerrett has been an attendant at the lonely dump site — located about 10 miles east of Sagle — for about a year, and has been compiling a veritable exhibition hall of her “garbage art” for nearly as long.
She started out making small bird feeders and flower plots using anything from worn out boots to old scraps of metal, but as her creative juices began to flow, so too did her ambition. The bird feeders and flower pots are still included, but Jarrett’s art has evolved into bigger, more intricate pieces that stand five feet tall and incorporate dozens of motifs.
Her raw materials include broken snow shovels, deflated basketballs, scruffy toys and, in one of her more surreal pieces, a toilet with a tattered umbrella protruding out.
Becoming the junkyard Michelangelo didn’t happen all at once. It began with Jarrett helping customers unload their garbage and seeing something appealing — she especially likes old saw blades and bottle caps — and asking the owner if she could use it.
“I’d see something and just say, ‘Oh, that looks interesting,’” she said.
As time went on, regulars at the dump would stop by after finding an odd piece of metal or chipped ceramic doll with hopes that Jarrett could incorporate it into one of her masterworks.
If Jarrett’s art had a trademark, it would be the blending of functionality and aesthetics. Nearly every piece has a secret compartment of sunflower seeds to lure in squirrels or a dish with bird feed or a flower pot. She likes to create micro-habitats for her birds and squirrels, and that sensibility can be seen in most of her works. Some of her more intricate pieces could function as rodent theme parks, giving squirrels a maze of runways to climb and hidden treasures to find tucked in the corner of a dented mailbox.
She’s had several people offer to buy her art, but Jarrett said she always turns them down, no matter the price, because Bonner County technically owners all the garbage, even after it becomes something more than garbage. Others have come from as far away as Boston and San Francisco to see the outdoor gallery, which Jarrett said is flattering and fun.
Jarrett has been a bit of a nomad, moving here and there, working this job and that, but she didn’t find her true calling until she began Garfield dump. She loves the job and wouldn’t trade it for anything.
“It’s been really fun. I love this job,” she said. “At this point in my life, it’s perfect.”
Now that she’s found her calling, Jarrett hopes she can continue making treasures out of other people’s trash for years to come. And the members of the Shana Jarrett fan club hope she gets her wish. She said it would be fun to see her art in a “real” gallery, but gaining recognition has never been her goal. As long as people continue to give her their discarded, dilapidated junk, she’ll continue to transform it into something beautiful.
“I like the idea of creating something and creating something that would otherwise end up in a land fill,” she said. “It makes me feel good. It makes me feel happy that it makes other people feel happy.”
Jarrett’s makeshift gallery is located at 1550 Garfield Bay Cutoff Road.