By Sue Lewis

Jason Darling at 2010 Seattle Trash Fashion Show. Photo by Michael Cline

The Orcas Island Garden Club’s guest speaker on October 19, 2011 will be Jason Darling, the  Education and Marketing Coordinator for The RE Store,  a community-based non-profit with stores in Bellingham and Seattle.  The store demonstrates the beautiful use of salvage in a Norwegian boathouse turned cabin in Seattle.

Jason Darling has served as lead coordinator and visionary behind RE’s Recycled Arts Show since 2005, partnering with museums, galleries and schools.

Jason has trained art instructors and brought the Mobile Recycled Art station to over 25 festivals and events as part of the larger Recycled Arts Program.  In a prior life, he applied his B.S. in Environmental Education in native plant ecological restoration service-learning projects and in his own garden.

His enthusiasm in sparking reuse and creativity is being channeled into a book and video, “How To Be Creative With Less,” due out in 2012.  Jason proudly walks the line between dignified and wacky. He is shown in the photo accompanying this article wearing a vest made from a paint studio drop cloth created by his mother, Ann Darling.

Join us to explore the beauty, whimsy and money-saving aspects of used materials as garden/outdoor decor.  Be inspired with a slideshow of fences and screens, pavers/patios, arbors, creative planters, sculptural accents, water features and weird old unidentifiable things.

The Orcas Island Garden Club encourages you to mark your calendars for October 19 and join us at 10:00 A.M. in Orcas Center’s Madrona Room. Come just for the fun of it!

Go to www.orcasislandgardenclub.org for further information.