From paintings to huts to boats made of cork, people all over the world are getting crafty with wine
If only I had a dime for every time I heard someone waxing poetic about the “art of wine” or how wine is “bottled poetry.” True, a good bottle can certainly inspire one to the pinnacle of artistic expression (or, at least, the mediocrity of semi-coherent ramblings). But all this praise centres around the act of imbibing the wine, placing the fermented juice as the finished work of art — what about turning that around, and making wine the artistic medium, rather than the final form?

A few innovative individuals have done just that. Take Christina LoCascio, an artist based out of Santa Ynez, Calif. LoCascio is part of the team of artists who create wine labels for California’s Artiste Winery. All of these labels are done in a contemporary impressionistic style, and while most of the artists use the traditional oil-based paints for creating their works, LoCascio is a notable exception — she creates all her pieces with red wine. Because different grapes have different degrees of pigmentation, LoCascio is able to incorporate a broad spectrum of hues into her works by using different types of wine. Her works have appeared on several labels of Artiste’s Wines.

Several others have also experimented with wine painting, including Stewart Kenneth Moore, whose blog Wine Ink (wineink.blogspot.com) showcases his experime nts with the medium, as well as Nelva Richardson, who uses red wine to create detailed landscapes and personal portraits.

Still more fun can be had with the containers wine comes in, namely those pretty glass bottles that you commonly chuck in the recycling bin. Now, it’s quite common for diehard wine lovers to save the bottles of memorable (read: really expensive) wines, but a few people out there have taken things so much further. Though it may be more akin to architecture than art, Richard Pim, a retiree from England, built a small dome-shaped hut in his backyard using over 5,000 wine bottles. It stands 11 feet high and 19 feet wide. The structure is held together by four arches made of reinforced concrete. Pim was enjoying a glass of wine in his garden one day, admiring the sparkling effects of the glass in the sunlight, when the idea came to him. It took him a couple years to do it, but well, he had a lot of wine to plow through.

In a similar vein (though on a decidedly smaller scale), I have also seen several examples of lights and lamps created from recycled wine bottles. Now, the hippies back in the 1960s had a similar idea when they used old Chianti bottles as candle holders, but that barely qualifies as artistic; Jerry Kott’s handmade lamps are a definite step above this. Kott creates his “light sculptures” by slicing wine bottles in half, polishing the edges, and then affixing them together — all by hand. The result is rather striking, and while it may not qualify as high art, I know I totally want some of them in my house.
Let’s not forget about the corks. They are a staple of kids’ crafts; as a tot, I once lamented my parents’ predilection for beer and rye; corks were a rare commodity around the house. Now, a quick Google search reveals all sorts of cork-based handicrafts that anyone could easily whip up if they were so inclined (and had a few hundred corks lying around). Now, aside from all the cork pot holders and picture frames and bulletin boards and coasters, there actually are some pretty cool things being done with corks.  The first that comes to mind are Gabriel Wiese’s “corkART” chairs and tables. Using anywhere from 600 to over 15,000 corks each. Now, they may not make the honourable mention list in Better Homes and Gardens, but there’s no denying that these pieces of functional art have a certain rustic charm to them.

Every kid has dreamed about building a raft and sailing away on it (or at least, every kid who read the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn). This urge generally fades over time, except in the case of John Pollack, a former Clinton speechwriter who built a boat entirely from wine corks. Disillusioned and frustrated with the hypocrisy in Washington, Pollack left his job and crafted a boat made from 165,321 corks, held together by rubber bands. Over a hundred volunteers helped out with the project, including his friend and architect Garth Goldstein. The maiden (and only) voyage lasted for 17 days down the Douro River in Portugal – a fitting setting, given Portugal’s status as the world’s number one cork producer. Pollack has since written a memoir of the experience, entitled Cork Boat.