Teachers hope to warehouse junk to turn into art

By Mireille Theriault

Melanie Janzen and Andrea Stuart have no difficulty at all imagining a huge depot overflowing with all types of arts materials, donated by dozens of companies and made available free of charge to teachers.

They know it can be done because they’ve seen it in other cities and they want Manitoba to be next.

Essentially, manufacturers and companies would have an alternative to sending quality materials from paper, plastic and cardboard off cuts and trimmings, to bolts of cloth, packaging and production ‘errors’ to a facility where it will all be eagerly snapped up rather than having it clog landfill.

“It would be a depot where the materials would be sorted, nicely displayed and made available for whomever to come by and take what they need. Anyone who is working in an arts-related discipline, teachers and absolutely anyone who works with kids.  Artists and crafts persons of course, but students of drama or even architecture need these types of materials as well.”

Already the infant non-profit has a name, and ArtsJunktion MB held its first Annual General Meeting in June of last year. An average of 12 to 15 interested individuals and groups attend the monthly meetings at the Manitoba Children’s Museum, which has volunteered meeting space.

The project is not officially even off the ground as yet, but materials are already being collected and distributed. And Janzen and Stuart know it is only a matter of time before the wheels of bureaucracy provide them the traction required to move forward: a charitable tax receipt number.

“We submitted the paperwork last fall and were told it could take anywhere from five to 12 months” says Janzen, a learning support teacher at Constable Albert Finney School as well as a Ph. D student at UBC. Stuart teaches full-time, also at CAF School and is chairperson of the Manitoba Association of Arts Educators.

Both are quick to point out that this is not a new idea and neither is the interest in bringing it to Manitoba.

“We just started planning as though it was really going to happen. It is going to happen,” says Janzen.

“Toronto has had an ArtsJunktion for about 30 years and Vancouver’s project has been running almost as long,” says Stuart. About three years ago both educators went to the Toronto facility,   housed in the basement of a school, to take a closer look at donated materials, how the project there is run, its strengths and challenges and most of all how they could duplicate the concept in Winnipeg.

They feel that the peripheral awareness of the project helped create the buzz but for the most part, the idea easily sells itself.

 “It’s a wonderful concept that appeals to such a wide range of people from educators to artists and certainly environmentalists. People are calling or e-mailing us constantly wanting to help out.”

It would be an enviable position any organization would be pleased to tackle in theory but the limitations of lacking a long-term space large enough to accommodate the potential volume of donations and preferably in the centre of the city is just one of the current obstacles. It comes back to the charitable tax donation status. ArtsJunktion has no way of acknowledging and thus putting into place a system of transporting donations for example.

Those familiar with negotiating these types of barriers might suggest that they simply ‘borrow’ the tax number of another organization.

“We could have chosen to operate under the Seven Oaks School Division,” says Janzen, but she and Stuart say that while it was tempting, such an arrangement would also restrict the project.  The scope of the vision and desire to serve the community at large necessitates patience for a bigger pay-off and ultimately greater stability for long-term viability from a financial perspective.  The group is far from allowing themselves to feel as though their hands are completely tied though.

“We’ve made tremendous progress over the last year and a half and there is still plenty we can do in the meantime,” says Janzen. She points out that contacts at the University of Manitoba put them in touch a law firm which helped them draft bylaws for free. They are currently exploring resources that could assist in business planning and effective management of the organization once it does have space,  staff, volunteers and a budget. Board members like Di Harms are doing everything from writing funding and grant applications to pulling together promotional pamphlets and their fledgling website ( www.artsjunktion.mb.ca ) . 

ArtsJunktion is also hard at work networking with a variety of arts organization and community groups

“A very important distinction we need to make is that we are not offering programming, or direct instruction,” explains Stuart.  “We will be providing the raw materials. In our wildest dreams, sure we envision having an arts specialist or artist in residence on site to act as a resource to teachers and students. Certainly we won’t be a place for kids to drop in to make art and experiment with the materials.” Stuart emphasizes they are not competition for funding dollars in that sense.

Another vital distinction of what they are not is a catch-all for common household recyclables and a dumping ground for old computers and such. In the meantime, however, space is at a premium and contacts with potential donors must consider the limitation. “Unless it’s absolutely fantastic junk,” laughs Janzen. Both women admit to having their own garages packed to capacity in addition to other volunteers’ storage space. 

One of the most important things they are doing for now is giving teachers a taste of what they would like to offer on a larger scale.

 “What we are doing in the meantime is hosting  ‘Junktion Functions’, at events like the SAG conference where we will set up our stock-pile of stuff. We are getting the word out about what we hope will take off on a larger scale soon. When the Manitoba Association of Art educators held their conference at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, we got rid of boxes and boxes of everything from old art books to bolts of fabric. Teachers just swooped in and took things that would normally gone into landfill but it was only because we were there and it was available.”

“Teachers are very excited about it and constantly asking ‘Are you open yet? When is it going to open?’  It’s only a matter of time, “ agrees Stuart. She adds that the timing couldn’t be better, given that a new, expanded arts curriculum is set to begin next year.  Having the raw materials available to teachers will go a long way in being able to make the most of it.