Another man's treasure

What's a fashion show without behind-the-scenes panic?

Ten minutes before "Junk to Funk" began Saturday afternoon at the Recycled Arts Festival in Esther Short Park, organizers learned one model wasn't able to make it. They needed a size 4.

Chase McNeill, 23, agreed to fill in.

Even after the show, the Americorps volunteer drew attention in his short, strapless dress adorned with bows and ribbons, titled by the designer as "The Gift that Keeps on Giving."

McNeill, of Portland, hadn't planned on donning a dress but, hey, anything to get people thinking about new uses for old things.

"(Recycling) is easier than you think, it's more important than you think, and it's more fun than you think," he said.

McNeill was one of eight Americorps volunteers at the festival.

Other people attended the event unwittingly. They came downtown for the Vancouver Farmers Market and just wandered into the park, where 75 vendors were selling a mix of second-generation items, including garden sculptures made from metal, purses made from jeans and jewelry made from tin cans.

That they stumbled onto the festival by accident was fine with Sally Fisher, a waste reduction specialist for Clark County Public Works Solid Waste Program.

"We don't care how they get here," she said.

This is the fourth year for the festival. Fisher estimated that the weekend crowd would exceed its goal of 12,000 people.

Before hitting upon the idea of a festival, the county tried hosting recycling workshops. Those didn't exactly bring in the masses, Fisher said. They mostly attracted the already converted.

The festival, however, gets people talking to artists and thinking about recycling in a new light.

"It's really a fun way to create the buzz," Fisher said.

And once you've seen someone take the effort to make a dress from burlap sacks, it seems even easier to take Earth-friendly steps such as carrying groceries in reusable sacks and bringing a travel mug to a coffee shop.

The festival might even get people thinking twice before dispatching certain pieces of junk to the county dump.

"Hopefully, they'll donate to an artist," Fisher said.

Stephanie Rice: 360-735-4549 or stephanie.rice@columbian.com.