Creative repurposing

Don't let it go to waste: these 12 weird artworks are worth millions

Credit: Maryam Tello

They say that creativity is all about finding opportunities where others don’t. The artists on this list must have taken that definition very literally because they all use highly unconventional media to create their work. From Post-it notes and stamps to fruit and trash, these 12 artistic visionaries are game for any kind of everyday material. Keep reading to learn more about them!

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Is "Post Pop Art" a thing? This artist from Staffordshire, England, seems to think so! Pete Mason combines pop art and graphic design to create portraits of famous people out of recycled postage stamps. He sorts the stamps by design, color, and pattern and then applies them to a previously sketched canvas. Each of Mason’s pieces, which include portraits of Princess Diana and Martin Luther King, takes up to 20,000 stamps.

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Don't throw away that burnt slice of toast; you can make art with it! Or at least that's what New Zealand artist Maurice Bennett did. Using thousands of pieces of toasted bread, burnt to varying degrees, he created billboard-sized mosaic portraits of well-known personalities, from Elvis Presley to the Mona Lisa. Bennett preferred to use white bread, but sometimes experimented with multi-grain to achieve different shades. Clever, huh?

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Who would have thought that junk mail could be turned into something beautiful? Well, a New York-born artist decided it was time to take action. A pioneer of the Green Fine Art movement, Sandhi Schimmel creates mosaic pictures out of all kinds of unusual materials, from junk mail to catalogs and old greeting cards. She was first inspired by a process called "upcycling," which she discovered while in Venice, Italy. Most of her artworks are portraits, like a piece featuring Madonna called "All American Blonde" and a re-creation of the famous The Birth of Venus.

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Franz Spohn is a multifaceted artist based in Pennsylvania. He’s a sculptor, illustrator, art professor, and even TV host! For the past 25 years, he has created over 200 mosaic murals made from plastic tubes filled with hundreds of colorful gumballs. His pieces usually portray popular icons like Barack Obama and Rosa Parks. Spohn’s masterpieces have been exhibited in several museums around the world. Talk about eye candy!

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Who said you had to be good at drawing to be an artist? A 20-year-old art student from Leavenworth, Washington, created a 25-foot-high portrait of Jimi Hendrix made from more than 8500 Bicycle playing cards. With the help of a computer program, David Alvarez mapped and divided a picture of the great American musician into parts. After deciding where each colored playing card would go, he meticulously placed them on a styrofoam board. He completed his masterpiece in just 21 hours!

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Did the world need another Mona Lisa? Probably not, but this version is noteworthy because of the materials used to create it. In 2006, a group of computer engineers presented a re-creation of da Vinci's masterpiece made out of random computer parts at an art exhibition in Beijing, China. To make this collage, they used computer chips, circuits, and old motherboards. This piece of "geek art," titled "Technology Smiling," fascinated audiences. What do you think the Italian Renaissance artist would think of it?

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Those sticker labels that come on fruits and vegetables are sometimes so cute that you feel bad throwing them away. Barry Snyder of Erie, Colorado, probably wanted to prevent these design gems from going to waste when he came up with the idea of creating his amazing mosaic artworks. He uses around 4,000 labels for each of his four-square-foot creations. People even send him stickers from all over the world, so he doesn’t run out. His pieces are so popular that they can sell for up to $10,000. Who would have thought that something destined to become trash could be so lucrative?

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British artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster use different objects and materials, mostly trash, to create people and animal shadows. They arrange the objects in such a way that, when light is projected onto them, a recognizable silhouette can be seen on the wall. They have even managed to create identifiable portraits! For their contributions to British contemporary art, Noble and Webster received an honorary doctorate from Nottingham Trent University in 2009.

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Inspired by the Y2K computer scare in 2000, American artist Scott Blake began creating artworks out of bar codes. He started with circles and squares and soon switched to designing digital portraits of icons such as Elvis Presley, Andy Warhol, and Marilyn Monroe in Photoshop. Many of his pieces are interactive; if scanned with a cell phone, you can hear Blake’s subjects telling their stories.

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Since 1988, artist Helge Lundstrom and his daughter Emma Karp have been creating apple mosaics for the annual Kivik Apple Festival. Known for being an important fruit supplier in Sweden, this town celebrates the end of the harvest with these works of art as its centerpiece. Each piece is made from up to 75,000 apples of different varieties, from bright green Granny Smiths to duo-toned McIntoshes. What do you think of this juicy approach to art?

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This particular material is as bizarre as it is abstract. Yet, it still achieves impressive results. Iranian artist Hamid Naderi generates digital images from mathematical formulas. How does he do it? He finds the mathematical equation that corresponds to each color he wants to represent in a pixel. Through his work, Naderi proves that math doesn't have to be boring; it can be a vehicle for creating art and beauty.

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The Eisenhower Junior High School in Taylorsville, Utah, holds several world records—probably more than any other school in the country! Many of their record-breaking attempts were even featured in the Guinness World Records and Ripley’s Believe It or Not. One of its most incredible feats so far was creating the world’s largest Post-it note mosaic. In 2009, 151 students created a 60-by-40-foot work of art using 38,400 colorful sticky notes. The construction took three hours, and after the event, the Post-it notes were recycled.

Folklore from around the world

Dragons, vampires and beyond: the surprising origin of 12 ancient beasts

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Throughout history, dozens of mythological creatures from cultures around the world have played a leading role in tales and legends that have terrified even the bravest. Many of these beasts are well known, but have you ever wondered where their names came from? Read on to discover the origins of 12 legendary monsters!

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Ogres are popular characters in Western folk tales. The word ogre comes from French, and some scholars trace it to Orcus, a Roman god of the underworld who fed on human flesh.

Ogres are typically depicted with large heads, wild hair, and scruffy beards. In fairy tales, they are often portrayed as brutal giants who eat humans and are almost always extremely strong and ferocious. This legendary monster became popular thanks to the works of French author Charles Perrault in the 17th century.

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Yes, the most famous vampire is Count Dracula, but blood-sucking undead creatures existed in European folklore long before Bram Stoker published his novel in 1897. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the word vampire likely comes from the French vampire, borrowed from German and ultimately from South Slavic languages such as Serbian vampir.

Vampiric entities have been recorded in many cultures, although they were especially popular in Southeastern and Eastern Europe during the 18th century. Unlike the pale, fanged aristocrats of modern fiction, early vampires were often described as bloated, dark-skinned corpses that rose from the grave to feed on the living.

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A mummy is, of course, the preserved body of a dead human or animal. In ancient civilizations such as Egypt, mummification was a vital part of religious and burial practices, believed to prepare the deceased for the afterlife.

Yet, popular culture took it upon itself to depict mummies as supernatural monsters. This portrayal likely stems from tales of "mummy curses" that emerged in the early 20th century, particularly after the discovery of Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Ancient Egyptian mummies are named after the substance in which the dead person's body was embalmed. Mummy, in this sense, goes back to Arabic mūmiyā, meaning "bitumen" and therefore "embalmed corpse."

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Another popular monster from European folklore is the werewolf. The word that describes the mythical transformation of a person into a wolf comes from the late Old English werewulf, combining wer, meaning "man," and **wulf, meaning "wolf"**—literally, "man-wolf."

Werewolves are often described as being placed under a curse, and the association between werewolves and the full moon became widespread during the Middle Ages, though stories of human-to-wolf transformations go back even further—one of the earliest literary examples appears in the Satyricon by the Roman writer Petronius.

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Goblins are small, mischievous creatures that appear in European folklore, particularly in tales from the Middle Ages. They are often portrayed as evil, disfigured humanoids with magical powers and a love for causing trouble.

The word goblin has several proposed origins. The most widely accepted theory is that it comes from the Old French gobelin, which itself derives from _Gobelinus_—a malevolent spirit said to have haunted the town of Évreux in northern France during the 12th century.

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The banshee is usually depicted as a ghostly woman clad in pale, flowing garments, though in some accounts, she is described as a fairy who sings with a mournful, otherworldly voice. The word banshee comes from the Old Irish ben síde (or modern bean sídhe), meaning "woman of the fairies."

In Celtic folklore, the banshee is a supernatural being—often believed to be the spirit of a deceased ancestor—who wails a warning of an imminent death in a house. So, when this female spirit appears, watch out!

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The Gorgons are legendary monsters from ancient Greek mythology—three terrifying sisters with glaring eyes and serpents writhing in place of hair. The name comes from the Greek Gorgones, meaning "the grim ones," derived from gorgos, meaning "fierce" or "terrible."

According to myth, anyone who looked directly at a Gorgon would be turned to stone. The most famous of the trio is Medusa, the only mortal Gorgon. Although she was slain by the hero Perseus, her severed head retained its petrifying power and was used as a weapon long after her death.

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A zombie is a contradicting monster: it’s a human who’s both living and dead. The idea of reanimated corpses originates in Afro-Caribbean folklore, particularly Haitian Vodou, where zombies are said to be dead bodies brought back to life and controlled by a sorcerer.

In modern times, zombies have become iconic figures in horror films and fiction, often portrayed as mindless, flesh-eating hordes. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the term zombie has a Central African origin and can be traced back to words like zumbi ("fetish") and djumbi ("ghost").

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Ghouls are monsters from Arabian mythology that are usually found haunting the places humans tend to avoid, like graveyards and abandoned areas. According to legend, a ghoul would lure unsuspecting travelers into the wilderness with the intent of devouring them.

The word ghoul comes from the Arabic term ġūl, a desert-dwelling demon that feeds on the dead, often by robbing graves. Ġūl in turn derives from ghala, meaning "to seize." In some traditions, ghouls are considered a type of jinn—supernatural beings that can be either good or evil—from which the English word genie is derived.

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The Kraken is a legendary sea monster from Scandinavian mythology. This creature, resembling a giant squid or octopus, dwells in the deep sea, stalking sailors who dare to enter its waters. According to legend, it is capable of swallowing men, ships, and even whales.

The term kraken derives from the Norwegian word krake, meaning "pole," "stake," or "post," as well as "crooked tree" or "stunted animal or person."

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Oni are fearsome creatures in Japanese folklore. According to a 10th-century Japanese dictionary, the word—represented by the kanji 鬼—may derive from on or onu, meaning "to hide." Oni are typically hidden beings, dwelling in caves or remote mountains, making them difficult to spot.

When they do appear, they often take a red or blue humanoid form. They carry iron clubs, have horns and massive teeth, and are sometimes depicted with extra eyes, fingers, or toes. Despite their fearsome reputation for devouring humans in one mouthful, oni are also sometimes linked to bringing good fortune and wealth.

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The dragon, one of the most well-known mythological beings, appears in various forms in several cultures around the world. In China, dragons are considered symbols of good fortune, while in medieval Europe, they were often depicted as evil creatures. These creatures, often shown with reptilian and avian features, were known both as guardians of sacred places and as fearsome predators who devoured princesses.

Whether spewing fire from their mouths or seen as earthly representatives of the Devil, dragons were creatures to be feared. The word dragon entered the English language in the early 13th century from the Old French dragon, which in turn derives from the Greek drákōn, meaning "serpent" or "giant seafish."