• Great Ideas Grow
  In California

Dianna Cohen is an artist who makes artwork out of used plastic shopping bags by cutting them up and hand-sewing them back together into layered pieces full of rich colors and patterns. A pioneer in the greening of fine art, her work has been featured in many eco-themed exhibitions internationally.

In 2006, Dianna organized an exhibition of surfboards made from other artists' work titled “Flow” (yes, she's a curator too). Part of the process involved making large digital fabric prints of the artists' works. Output this way, the fabrics were vivid and crisp, and she was excited by how beautifully the artwork reproduced. This experience—and the success of “Flow”—sparked Dianna’s desire to make digital-print fabrics of her own artwork. Because her own creations are based on rethinking the use of petroleum-based plastics, Dianna naturally gravitated toward taking these fabrics and using them to create tote bags that could help reduce the use of plastic.

She took the idea to her longtime artistic collaborator Wayne DeSelle (graphic designer, computer whiz). Together, they set out to find the best way to reproduce a few of her boldly colored creations. After much trial and error—and a lot of time staring at computers screens—they figured out a solution: repeating patterns that look very much like real plastic when printed digitally.

To keep it green as possible, they printed the patterns on canvas that is made from a combination of recycled cotton and recycled plastic bottles. The rest was fairly simple: They took the fabric and found the best way of sewing it into sturdy bags without wasting it (each bag is wonderfully unique since it comes from whatever part of the fabric it happens to land on). Everyone they showed these new creations to loved them, and they founded Citizen Love to make and sell the bags. Now, anyone who wants to can not only carry around a piece of Dianna’s art, but make a statement of their own!