Junk Mail Artist Turns Postal Refuse Into Amazing Portraits

Sandhi Schimmel Gold may be the most unusual person in the world.

How so? Well, unlike most people, she actually enjoys getting junk mail.

Even stranger: She may make more money off it than the companies that send it to her.

Gold, 56, is perhaps the world's only artist who uses junk mail as her medium. That's right, she makes beautiful, intricate collages using old menus, catalogs and coupons that come to her in her mailbox.

The results are beautiful portraits that can sell for up to $10,000 per piece -- and since she gets most of her materials free of charge, her profit margin is very very high.

"They're paying for the artist, not the materials," Gold told AOL News from her studio in Phoenix.

Gold didn't start out turning trash into treasure. The idea came to her seven years ago after a visit to Italy.

"I've always been fascinated by mosaics," she said. "When I was in Venice, I saw a stained glass portrait of a woman, and when I saw that, I decided that's really the type of art I wanted to do."

But Gold didn't have a good experience working with glass.

"I was frustrated trying to cut glass and paint glass," she said. "It wasn't fulfilling a creative need."

Gold tossed her wish of becoming an acclaimed stained glass artist into the Dumpster of life the day her parents decided to palm off some of their old junk onto her.

"Dad has this old-school elementary school paper cutter that he gave to me, and a whole bunch of old greeting cards," she said. "I cut them up, glued them onto paper and it looked great! I said, 'Eureka!' "

After that, Gold started saving any form of colored paper she could find.

"Most of it came from junk mail," she said gleefully. "I used old menus; postcards; Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons; and business cards.

"Holland America mail is the perfect thickness, and I like J. Crew and Nordstrom's catalogs as well. Pottery Barn? I use the covers but not the rest. Old movie tickets are good too."

Gold cuts the paper into pieces, making sure to remove logos, and puts each color in a separate filing cabinet. She's very specific -- she has a drawer dedicated to "celery green."

"And I keep metallic colors separate from the others," she said.

Gold spends weeks on her works, many of which are based on classical compositions such as "Venus," while others are based on celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Bob Marley, Elvis Presley and ... Billy Bush?!?!?

Yes, the "Access Hollywood" host is one of the few people lucky enough to be immortalized in junk mail. Naturally, he was honored by the tree-saving tribute.

"He was screaming because I got his cowlick exactly right," Gold said proudly.

Gold's work is sold at fine-art galleries, but, as you might expect, many of her customers are in the "green" movement and are impressed by her sustainability.

"I am committed to recycling both personally and professionally, and I don't use toxins," she said. "You could eat my art ... but I'm not sure you could digest it."

Amazingly, some of her customers are major companies such as Coors Brewing Co. and the SushiSamba restaurant chain, which hire her to use their mailings and ads and turn them into something slightly more artistic.

And, believe it or not, Gold has sold at least five paintings to Ripley's Believe It or Not, and they are being displayed at various Odditoriums around the world.

Loral Deatherage, who manages EcoCentricity, a Phoenix store specializing in sustainable goodies of all types, says Gold's work is inspirational to people who want to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills.

"I always see customers glancing at the mosaics, and when I tell them they're made from junk mail, they are blown away and start looking at them even more closely.

"The representational quality is incredible. Many people think recycled work belongs in a dorm room, but she proves it can be beautiful."

Gold's fellow artists, such as Tami Zweig, a Santa Barbara, Calif., mosaic artist and instructor, also hold her work in high regard.

"Her work is really incredible as far as the image she is portraying and her attention to detail," Zweig said. "I am glad to see her using recycled materials."

Eric Daigh, an artist who does mosaic-type portraits using pushpins, says Gold's choice of material is a comment on the impermanence of life.

"The metaphor utilized here is relevant," Daigh said. "Junk mail is, as mail, dying, I would guess. So there's this ephemeral quality to the idea that the human form is made from that, transformed."

Liz Gordon, who owns The Loft at Liz's, a Los Angeles gallery, may be paying Gold the biggest compliment of all.

"I have two boxes of postcards I've been saving for her," she said. "She makes phenomenal work. We do promote the fact that it's made from junk mail, but they are amazing pieces."

Although Gold would love for others to find ways to keep paper out of landfills, she isn't worried that people will be invading her artistic turf.

"The patience required to cut and glue tiny pieces of paper makes it difficult for other people to copy," she said.


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