For the third year in a row, the A.I.R.E. (Artist-in-Residence and Education) Program at the Jefferson County Solid Waste Transfer Station has made some people’s trash into other people’s treasure.

This year’s artist is D.J. Whelan.

AIRE was inspired by the Recology San Francisco Artist in Residence (AIR) Program, the GLEAN Portland program and the Signal Mountain Recycling Center education site in Tennessee, according to AIRE Director Tracy Grisman.

“AIRE aims to feature local artists, creating works to help bring to light waste-related issues through a creative process,” Grisman said. “Each year, a different local artist receives a stipend and mining privileges at the Jefferson County Solid Waste Transfer Station, in exchange for creating an end-of-term exhibit that’s displayed on site.”

AIRE falls under the volunteer-run 501(c)(3) Local 20/20 Beyond Waste program and October marks the official close of Whelan’s residency for 2025, which began in June.

“Each selected artist has to live within an hour’s travel time of the transfer station,” Grisman said. “Their residency is intended to run from June through August, although it’s been bleeding into September.”

They have been working with staff from the county, Public Works and the transfer station. “We also try not to bother them, and to stay out of their way.”

Grisman and Whelan both expressed their appreciation to Solid Waste Division Manager Al Cairns, Solid Waste Operations Coordinator Justin Miskell and all the staff they’ve encountered at the transfer station, who get credit for the training and orientation about safety protocols for while they’re on site.

Their gear includes reflective vests, hardhats, walkie-talkies and filter masks, and while there’s a small studio office on site for the artist in residence, they’re also allowed to take their chosen reclaimed and repurposed materials to their own studios off-site.

“The first year of AIRE, we ran it as a pilot program where we learned how to do everything in real time,” Grisham said. “We initially envisioned having the artist on site, at the recycling station, to help provide education to the public, but that didn’t work out.”

Whelan’s stipend for her residency this year was $2,000, and while she’ll be unveiling a main piece on site during the month of October that will remain at the transfer station, she’s also been allowed to gather materials for pieces which she’ll display off-site, at venues such as the Grover Gallery in Port Townsend.

Whelan will be a guest artist at the gallery, located at 238 Taylor St., starting at noon on Thursday, Oct. 2. She will be for a reception during the Art Walk from 5-8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 4, before she conducts an artist’s talk there from 6-7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 24.

Whelan is a mixed-media artist who’s lived in Port Townsend for three years and worked as a painter, a sculptor and a gardener. She was already inclined to use found and cast-off objects, along with “elements of nature,” well before taking part in the AIRE program.

In 2021, Whelan started a small, community-based art gallery that she runs from her property, which hosts seasonal events for local artists that often incorporate visual art, food, live music and on-site sculpture gardens.

Whelan embarked upon her AIRE tenure with few preconceived notions about what her project might ultimately become, and instead collected materials based on the “character,” texture and versatility of those individual pieces.

“There was so much wood available, which really appealed to me, because it’s part of nature,” Whelan said. “The amount of construction materials that were just dropped off at the transfer station was gold, between the wood, the metal bars, the windows and the doors.”

When folks who were dropping off items at the transfer station asked Whelan what she was doing, she told them, “I’m helping waste turn into something else.” She reports that was met with an almost uniformly positive response.

“So much good stuff gets dropped off at the transfer station,” Grisham said. “We hope that, by showing how useful such items can continue to be, we might keep some of them from going into our system in the first place.”

“Seriously, I found an entire stack of plywood sheets at the transfer station one day,” Whelan said. “There was nothing wrong with them! Another day, someone dropped off a truckload of wrought-iron tables. There’s so much good fodder for art at that place!”

“DJ really enjoyed her residency at the transfer station,” Grisham said.