Aside from the art, one of the best parts of Bushwick Open Studios is the ability to see how local artists live and the eccentric ways they set up their work spaces — something that makes Jennifer Slavin Harris a bit nervous. She was busy washing her dishes and rearranging furniture, all with a smile, as guests walked into her loft on McKibbin Street to view her mixed-media collages. Don’t get me wrong, her place was amazing with its wall-sized windows and golden Buddha pay phone shrine, but it’s amusing to see the human side, the self-conscious side, of the creator.

Throughout the weekend, Jennifer showcased her various arrangements of found objects (recycled art, street trash, urban artifacts), painted and glued to decomposing pieces of wood. The collages can include anything from old laptop keyboards to weathered children’s toys and are meant to “reflect the progress and careless freedom challenging today’s consumer culture.” She mainly uses the objects as they are, taking advantage of their unique textures and occasionally removing excess dirt, but the end result is always converting something that was littering our urban environment into a piece of art.