This summer, two Seattle artists found themselves donning bright orange safety vests and blue hard hats for five months. While artist residencies often invite attendees to immerse themselves in unfamiliar environments, this one took place in a most unusual locale: a recycling facility.

At the south Seattle Recology center, artists Kalina Winska and Margie Livingston took up shop as part of the King County Recology artist in residence (AIR) program, which has hosted artists for nearly 10 years. After months of sifting through the piles of plastic, aluminum, cardboard, and other recyclable (and, often, unrecyclable) materials that make their way to the facility, the artists presented their final artworks in an exhibition at Mutuus Studio in Georgetown, which ran from September 6-14.

“It was so interesting because both Margie and Kalina came into this intently searching for connections,” said Amanda Manitach at the opening. An artist herself, Manitach participated in a Recology residency last year and now co-manages the AIR program. “Margie wanted to find things that resonated with her around domestic life, and Kalina was seeking out the patterns, lines, and grids that existed in her paintings.”

Both artists presented works on a dramatic scale that filled the lofty Mutuus space, their largest works hanging on the tallest gallery walls, Livingston’s measuring 11 by 14 feet. “Confronted by a pile of material taller than a house, I found myself searching for items that connected to my own personal life,” writes Livingston in her artist statement. “For me, the juxtaposition of traditional painting materials and cast-offs from our consumer culture is a way to think about the serendipity that brought the disparate parts together.”

Winska’s largest piece, a towering wall-mounted sculpture made of grid-like pieces of metal offcast from dish drying racks, oscillating fans, and plant holders, managed to merge the different textures and patterns together into a single, undulating form. “A certain beauty and fragility emerges in these otherwise rigid forms when they have been crumpled and flattened,” writes Winska. “Everything here has been mistreated and discarded because it is no longer needed, yet in this abandonment the materials take on new meanings.”

While Winska’s large-scale work was devoid of color, except for a faintly glowing halo behind the work created by her having painted the back of the white sculpture in neon colors, Livingston’s large piece was brightly animated in yellows and blues. Both artists used paint to unify the disparate pieces that came together to form their sculptures, finding connection where before there was only refuse. “Being alongside Kalina and Margie in their journey, I’ve gained a whole new appreciation for seeing things,” said Manitach. “That’s what the residency is all about: learning to see the ‘stuff’ of our lives in a different way, shifting our relationship with objects.”