Did You Know?
Jean Shin’s work illustrates optimism gained from giving new life to discarded materials. Stripped of any consumer value, she transforms leftovers of life into displays of form, texture and color.
Shin has created installations out of vast collections of items such as: prescription pill bottles, lottery tickets, military uniforms, discarded leather shoes (deconstructed and sewn together), prescription eye glasses, rolodex cards, fabric removed from hundreds of umbrellas, and clothing reduced to skeletal seams.
Glass Block was first done in 2003 for an exhibit at Smack Mellon Studios in New York City. Shin and her husband, Brian Ripel, lamented that NY City no longer had a recycling program. What to do with all those wine bottles?
In 2005, they created Glassscape in Paris where wine is integral to French cultural heritage. The French audience was very interested in reading the labels on the bottles, noting name, region and year. This had not been observed in New York.




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