Bip to bling: Oakland artist makes jewelry from smashed car windows

"When she sees the remnants of a bipped window in the street, she dons a pair of gloves and gingerly collects the glass in a bucket. Then she turns it into jewelry. Through her Odd Commodity Shop brand, Jones sells candles, plant propagation vessels, earrings, and other functional art, largely created with "reclaimed glass." The Oakland artist converts old Modelo and Topo Chico bottles into scented candles, wine bottles into vases, and, yes, broken auto glass into wearable accessories."

"You return to your car after a satisfying dinner downtown or an entertaining movie by the lake only to find what used to be your driver's-side window shattered, lying in hundreds of fragments on the street. Your car's been broken into. Or, in Bay Area lingo, it's been bipped. Most of us either sweep up the spiky pieces of glass and toss them into the trash, or leave them scattered on the road, cursing the crews that roam local cities smashing windows."

Sydney Jones collects shattered car-window glass from streets, cleans it with gloves, and reclaims the shards for art. She melts the fragments in a microwave kiln into circular droplets, attaches jewelry hardware, and creates earring studs that quickly sold out. Through Odd Commodity Shop, she repurposes bottles into scented candles and vases and makes plant propagation vessels and other functional objects from reclaimed glass. Customers respond to the transformation of a negative experience into sustainable, wearable accessories. Jones began the enterprise as an architecture undergraduate, starting with leftover resin for models and expanding into a small business.

Read at The Oaklandside