When Kate Whitman was camping recently at Washoe Lake campgrounds, after being evicted this summer with her two kids from a home on 7th street, she noticed all the glass on the ground, and wondered what she could do with it.
“It just looks like people just throw their bottles when they're driving down the road. They just throw them into the desert,” she told Our Town Reno during a recent interview.
Glass she says isn’t even legal in many state parks and she was worried her dogs would get injured.
She got an old freezer bag, adding more glass and other items she found. She found an old Schlitz beer can. There were animal bones, including one from a baby horse. Before long, she had two full freezer bags of glass and other stuff.
“I just started looking at it. It was kind of pretty in the light. It was shimmery. I started thinking that it would look really cool encased in resin,” she said. “I figured, you know, a pyramid would be good because of the pyramids, how to symbolize society. So that's really just how it happened. I just really felt compelled to do it. I just felt like it's just something I needed to do.”
She’s now looking into grants to be able to finish the piece, which she says represents our impact on nature.
She’s living in an apartment in Lemmon Valley now, after being over a dozen years at her old home on 7th street. Those houses are being demolished as part of the ongoing UNR expansion project.
“A lot of those houses were so cute, and they're just all gonna be demolished. And, people are running out of places to live. You know?” she said of a quickly changing Reno. “ I've known people who've just gotten evicted because they can't afford to pay $300 more in rent every month.”
Whitman has a Facebook Page called Reno Garbage Art where she details her progress on different projects, including this latest one.
“First part is done, except for sanding & polishing. 3 tiers left,” she wrote recently. “Still trying to figure out funding so I can finish it. We will be going to Washoe Lake next week, weather permitting. I used most of the glass already.”
She also has an Instagram called love_life_glitter_art which she started a few years ago to honor a friend who passed away, when she found a new vocation as a self-made upcycler and artist.
For several now years, Whitman has been adding fabric to mirrored jewelry boxes and upcycling other items she finds, such as picture frames, dressers and wine box sets, adding splatter paint or other touches and trying to sell online and at vending events. She had just started a store in the garage of her old house, but lost that when she was evicted.
She used to find items thrifting in person, but finds that too expensive now, so peruses through the Facebook marketplace instead.
Whitman has been a vendor before at a Reno Punk Rock Flea Market and at the Generator, finding those types of community events fulfilling, with the possibility of making some money as well.
She has been unable to work a regular job for years, with a degenerative disc disease and other debilitating health issues. She used to be a waitress, making good money, but due to her disability started dropping things.
“When your spine is bad, it affects your limbs,” she explained during our interview. “I can't really sit. I have bone spurs on my spine, so I can't do, like, delivery driving or sit for a long time. “
She’s had a tough life, living on her own since she was a young teenager and having survived periods of homelessness.
She had her first surgery in her late 20s, which she says was botched and incomplete, before finally getting the help she needed at Spine Nevada, now Swift Institute. She has an ablation every six months, and needs another spine surgery, she says.
“It's hard being disabled and having, like, nothing to do all day,” she says of what pushes her to keep pursuing art projects.
If you’d like to help Whitman she has an Amazon wish list to collaborate on her projects which can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/dl/invite/08SJZFi?ref_=wl_share and a PayPal: paypal.me/kwhitman76