Green Options

Now in its 33rd year, the Union Street Festival is one of San Francisco’s biggest and best free annual events. This June the event will feature speakers, authors, organic cooks, gardening demos and more. 

“This year the east entrance of the Festival, (beginning at Gough) will again feature arts and crafts created with recycled and sustainable materials and eco-friendly exhibits. Additionally, the Festival showcases 150 arts & crafts booths, 25 gourmet food booths, two stages of live entertainment and bistro style cafes.”

Keep reading for event details:

The story goes that in recent years, Jeff Clapp has made eco-art that helps preserve the sanctity of Mt. Everest’s natural beauty, and extends the value of a particular bit of Himalayan adventurers’ waste: oxygen canisters. Clapp has collected a number of the tanks that once littered Everest, and has crafted them into bells, bowls and ornaments.

Source: Snarf’d and Bells From Everest (Clapp’s site)

This week, I had the opportunity to touch base with an entrepreneur tackling the art market. Tina Santillo, owner of, www.earths-journey.com, talks with me here about her journey as an green entrepreneur.

Did you look into the art market at all before you started?

It’s not so much that I looked into the art market before starting my business, it was more of journey that lead me to here.  I have always been creative, and dreamed of opening up my own little funky craft store downtown somewhere for when I had to retire - just for something to do.  I was going to purchase only pieces I liked, keep my dog in the store with me and smile the day away as people came in and out browsing.

Then one day I was looking for a gift for someone and came across this beautiful piece and fell in love with it.  Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was a bowl made from plastic recycled bottle caps, and I was shocked.  It was at that moment that it all came into play.  I needed to find more artists that worked with recycled materials just to see the talent and imagination… and that excitement brought me into the arts circle.  What I found there was a definite passion I was missing in my life - and one that I had been seeking for quite some time.

Tell me about the art market

Did you know that Art has surpassed the stock market in appreciation over the past twenty years. Also, we have an artist on the site that creates Fresco Paintings and that the first pigments used in painting were ground from earth, minerals and organic matter? Pigment is finely-ground colored powder which, when suspended in a medium such as oil, egg or water, forms paint. Most pigments are now made chemically and are more permanent; however he still uses the earth minerals for his pigmentation!

Why do you think there is a market for your site?

I believe in today’s economy, it’s no longer a choice to be eco-friendly, it’s a necessity.  We are all looking for ways to save, reuse, recycle, and do our part on this earth.  We are all in the market for a new concept, a new idea, something ingenious to take our minds off the mundane.  Artist’s like our site because it’s their freedom of expression, and buyers like our site for the variety.  You can buy a cool recycled necklace that used to be a mans tie for $9.00, and you can purchase an Original piece of art from India for $2000.00.  The variety will be endless.