Young, emerging artists in and around Clatsop County have the opportunity to join in the Coastal Oregon Artist Residency, a program that invites artists to scavenge for and make art out of reclaimed and recycled materials before showing their creations off at an exhibit.

The program began in 2016 as a collaboration between Recology Western Oregon and the Astoria Visual Arts. This year is the eighth round of the four-month residency, where two selected artists receive access to discarded materials, a monthly stipend, a studio space at Recology Warrenton-based facility, and a public exhibition in Astoria.

But this year, Recology Zero Waste Specialist Rhonda Green said an Emerging Artist Residency will give younger artists a chance to showcase their talents and draw an interest in using sustainable resources in art.

Applicants must be ages 18 to 23 and live within an hour of the Astoria Transfer Station. One emerging artist will get scavenging privileges at the transfer station, a stipend of $350 per month from June to September, and a public exhibition at the end of the residency.

Green said that she and Katie Hardesty, Recology’s operations manager, came up with the idea and are excited to pilot the program this year.

“It was kind of a brainchild of Katie and I, tossing ideas around, as we knew there were a lot of young, very talented kids … So it was just kind of, ‘How do we reach them?’” she said. “And so Katie said, ‘What if we expand the art program?’

Hardesty said it’s important for Recology to be involved with the community and to promote sustainability as well as give emerging artists a chance to explore their talents.

“I know Rhonda and I really wanted to facilitate that for emerging artists,” she said. “It’s not easy to be an artist, so we wanted to do as much as we can to help that process along. We went to our corporate office and ran it through our legal department and everybody that we needed to get an ‘okay’ from.

“They loved the idea and let us run with it, and now, here we are.”

Green said the first time visiting the transfer station to scavenge for materials is often a sentimental experience for artists as they realize that they’re scavenging through other people’s belongings.

“And we’ve heard and been told by all the artists, it’s a very emotional moment that they have,” she said, “where it kind of comes full circle, where they realize they’re actually using other people’s discarded trash or waste to create this stuff.”

In the past, artists have created everything from sculptures to paintings to mosaics from the materials they’ve found at the transfer station. Green said she often sees welded metal sculptures, but in the last few years has also seen urns made of yards of rope and paintings on canvases made from old grocery shopping lists and diary entries.

Hardesty recalled one artist who took a bunch of small, recognizable objects and arranged them so that they would look like a salmon before inking the piece and printing it on found parchment.

“And it was fabulous,” she said. “It was just a picture of a salmon, but when you got closer to it, you could see ‘Oh, there’s a toothbrush, there’s a thimble’ and all of these other things she found in there.”

The deadline for applications is May 11. Applicants are asked what encouraged them to apply, what mediums and tools they like to work with, and a statement of purpose.

Green said they have yet to see any applications for the program, but noted that artists are notorious for pushing up to the deadline and working meticulously on their applications, and that she is never surprised to see an overloaded inbox in the last five hours before applications close.

If this year’s Emerging Artist Residency program goes well, it will be a recurring one, and Recology may expand it to other service areas.

“I’m just very grateful that we work for a company that wants to be in the community and partner with the community and just uplift an emerging artist,” Hardesty said. “I feel very privileged that I get to be a part of that and that we actually get to make these wonderful changes and programs. I’m excited about it, I can’t wait.”