A book showcases a photo of a black-white and brown-feathered decomposing bird with its stomach cut open on the left side of the page. On the ride side, from metal screws to plastic bottle caps, an alarming amount of trash sprawled out inside of the bird.
This photo sparked Tara de la Garza’s interest in protecting the environment through her way, of art. Not your basic trash collages but elegant handbags made from plastic bags and captivating light fixtures filled with discarded waste.
This isn’t what de la Garza originally planned to do with her art. She started as a collagist in New York before moving to California. Then seven years ago, she saw the photo that sparked her new work. A photo of a bird with trash coming out of its stomach in “Archipelago” by Liittschwager and Middleton from National Geographic.
“What was in his stomach was all these little bits of plastic, and that set something off in me,” de la Garza said. “I was really sad to see that we’re having such a huge impact on such a remote part of the world, so I started to collect my own plastic and make it into the artworks.”
De la Garza is in her seventh year in the Cubberley Artist Studio Program at the Cubberley Community Center in Palo Alto. She works out of one of the former school’s classrooms. Her work has been featured in the Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
De la Garza founded a non-profit called Inventurous, which focuses on collecting all types of plastics and repurposing them into something new. The non-profit was inspired after Senate Bill 54 was passed. It aims to limit plastic waste by removing plastic bags from supermarkets, and it will be enforced starting in 2026. De la Garza wanted to help her community by doing something with all the plastic waste that can’t be recycled.
“Film plastics aren’t recycled at facilities because the machines that sort the recyclables gets caught and break them,” de la Garza said. “I also collect takeout containers because the robot can’t read the symbols on the bottom, and pill vials because a lot of people don’t recycle those either.”
Inventurous has a handbag line, called Rubbish, made of repurposed plastic newspaper bags. De la Garza turns them into a leather-like material using a heat press. For the bag handles she uses plastic she collects and turns them into chains, or she collects her straps from old bags.
De la Garza and her volunteer staff hold bag drops for the handbags they make. The money collected is then returned to the non-profit, which can use it to fund more educational campaigns and fundraisers.
People in artistic fields have just as much of an impact on our community as people who work in technology. Their works bring happiness to many people and are crucial to the future.
“There’s a lot of really creative people in this community,” de la Garza said. “And although Silicon Valley is very tech-focused, I think there needs to be a balance of that, and our future is all about being creative.”