Nicole McGee

 

Upcycle Artist and Entrepreneur

 

by Jalen Harris, crew 4

 

 

The flowers look like glass and are different colors. They are also different sizes. You can hold the flowers by their stem. You’d never guess they used to be soda bottles. Nicole McGee, 34, is a woman who makes flowers out of recycled bottles. As the artistic director of Upcycled Parts Shop, a recycled-art supplies store, she allows her customers to purchase recycled material to create art of their own.

 

McGee moved to Cleveland because she wanted to work with a community where she could recycle old material into new art. She left her career in nonprofits to follow her passion of working with her hands and being creative. McGee does not seek personal wealth; her goal instead is to invest back in the city rather than a company. She had a great job but she really started paying attention to what could give her energy and want she really wanted to do in Cleveland. She gets her inspiration from living in the city.

 

When exploring her artistic talent with recycled trash, McGee realized how much potential was around her and how much was becoming waste. All the stuff people throw away, such as garbage, paper, and scraps is exciting to her. “The idea is to be more thoughtful with what we throw away,” McGee said.  Local companies and people in the Cleveland area donate material for Nicole to revitalize. She expressed that “it turns out that a lot of people don’t want their discards to go to waste and like to offer them to people who could use them.”

 

McGee also uses her artistic talent to create artwork for companies. She works with larger organizations to provide her opportunities to make art made from recycled materials. She explained “what is gratifying is working with other people to make things. I enjoy sharing materials and inspiration to help them make their own art.” One organization that she partners with is Aladdin’s Eatery. This corporate chain with 35 restaurants across five different states showcases her handmade centerpieces. Recently the St. Clair Superior Community Development Corporation asked her to be part of their project to revitalize their neighborhood. Since then she has been able to make new things happen with this artistic intervention, which is her dream job as project manager with the Upcycle St. Clair project. Her role in this project allows her to work in a community to bring people together to be creative with art.

 

McGee has also been successful with achieving her dream commission to make beautiful art pieces from materials that are leftover from company’s waste streams. Last year, she used her skills to make a six-foot-tall logo from a company that makes flooring out of their recycled flooring. Not only does McGee design creative artwork for companies, she also helps them to recycle their waste projects. “People get pretty excited about recognizing a material or seeing that it is something that might otherwise have been landfill,” she excitingly described.

 

McGee attended Rocky Grove High School and Penn State University. Although her degrees in communications, international studies, and sociology are not directly related to her current job, she explains that they have been useful to promote her work and understand how to bring more people into it.  Her educational experiences have helped her to connect with people and inspire them through her art. “It was a process to realize this and I’m excited that I get to help other people have their own creative process,” she said. McGee is always busy managing her own business, and projects while caring for her family as a married woman with a one-year-old son.