Saving the Planet – One Shipping Pallet at a Time

When Tim Sway was in high school, an art teacher gave him instructions for an art project that he would never forget.

"You can use black, white, and one other color,'" he remembers her saying.

Back then it was instructions for an art project; today, it's a statement by which he lives his life.

"I'm a huge fan of limitations," he says. "It forces you to be more creative, to use what you have, and improvise."

A creator of what he describes as "green art with purpose," Tim turns previously used man-made materials into unique pieces of jewelry, tables, picture frames, or chairs.

When he received a call from a Juniper Drive couple requesting a chainsaw carving of the tree stump in their yard, Tim was intrigued by the challenge.

Working with this most raw of materials "was different," he says. "The material had not been touched by man, so it was my interaction with the material that was shaping its form."

He decided to make a bench, but instead of making the lines for it straight, as most wood furniture is, Tim gave it curves, he says, to accent the work Mother Nature had put into creating the tree.

Tim usually works with pieces from a landfill or building supply place to find a second use for them. Most of the wood he finds is from shipping pallets, as they are readily abundant.

"I like seeing man's interaction with the material," he says. "I like seeing the saw marks, dents, paint stains, broken edges. Instead of taking them away, I accent them."

Tim started selling his pieces professionally three years ago, but developed a talent for creating treasure from trash at a young age. He remembers going to the dump with his father, picking things up and bringing them home to work on.

"I would pick up materials that looked like a clock-scrap metal or an old hubcap-and assemble it," he says.

As a child, he remembers being bothered by the sight of perfectly useful items being thrown out. Hence, a motivation to make things of salvaged and reclaimed materials.

"I believe they are artistic statements, reminders to not be wasteful and [to] really cherish our wonderful resources and goods," he says.

Tim says he is driven to create "green art" by four constants that make up his philosophy on life: (1) tread lightly (try to leave things better than you found them); (2) don't waste; (3) be helpful; and (4) be good. These are the constants that he strives to communicate with each of his pieces.

"At the end of the day, they're just objects," he says. "You build your environment with objects. Instead of saying, 'I got that at a big box store,' you want to have a nice story about them. If you can say that you have a coffee table from an old barn, it makes [the object] seem less superficial."

For Tim, finding a second purpose for most of his art fulfills his desire to create something "pretty" and "useful."

When Tim isn't creating green art, he is playing the upright bass as a full-time musician. He plays several instruments including guitar and took courses in jazz composition at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He also spends time with his family including his wife Gwen, step-daughter Madeline, and son Vance.