Upcycling cork colorfully on Earth Day

Okay, okay, so Earth Day was in April. I totally dropped the ball on that one. Somehow, this post sat in my inbox, all scheduled to post, but never launched.  Puzzling. Ah well, it's still fun to take a look back...

I give you,  Anthropologie's fabulous cork installations.

Back in April, I happened to be down at my local shop, and ran into the visual merchandiser who was hard at work, glue gun in hand, gluing cork, after cork, after cork onto these enormous chicken-wire wrapped globes.

I thought it looked so cool, being able to see how the piece was constructed. But evidently, the project was just so huge, they had to be put together in place. I snapped a few shots of the pieces in progress.

 images by Rachel Perls

"We’re setting out right from the beginning with a goal: to support cork, to support the environment, and to do it right. In partnering with the CFCA we have been able to strategize a way to borrow, collect, and donate cork while being as environmental as possible...

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The project started with a gift to Anthropologie from the CFCA and Kendall-Jackson of around 2.5 million used corks. In addition, our store teams have been collecting cork stoppers from the staff, the community, and the customers for over a month now. Through the support of so many we have collected between 4-5 million corks."(source)

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I did some poking around online, and discovered that each cork end had to be painted/stained a specific hue to coordinate with each piece. Man, the amount of time this must have take is mind-boggling.

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The cork installations were inspired by sculptor Tara Donovan, who takes massive quantities of everyday items like tape, plastic cups, buttons, etc—and “assembles them in different ways, providing the viewer with a compelling, perceptually transformative experience.”(source)

Colonizing, I'd call it. Just beautiful...

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These were some other stores' creative use of the corks. 

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Aren't the textures and patterns created by the subtle variation in color just gorgeous?  Hats off to the artists in charge of putting these enormous, time consuming, gorgeous pieces together. Way to go Anthro.