Biography
Chicago based (wired) owner and designer Melissa Kolbusz holds a BFA in Industrial Design from University of Illinois at Chicago and also studied at the Universitá di Genova in Italy. She has worked in the fields of furniture design, engineering and architecture. In 1999 she began (wired), a project creating jewelry from reclaimed and surplus materials, which has since branched out into other accessories and art installations. Her work has been published in the books - Green Design (NY) and Recycle: The Essential Guide (London), and featured on the WB Morning News in NYC and NBC5 News in Chicago, as well as numerous other publications.

(wired) is a collection of accessories made entirely from reclaimed and surplus materials. The materials used come from the discarded piles of various local industries and include alternator wire, rubber and electronic parts. Each piece is handmade individually, and is either one-of-a-kind or produced in limited quantities. The found materials dictate the design of each piece and foster different design challenges than traditional materials.

Here is our interview of Melissa Kolbusz:

CP: Why are you green?

MK: All (wired) jewelry is made from reclaimed and surplus materials. I used to scrap everything and sometimes I still do but these days I have been developing relationships with manufacturers, mechanics, recycling and surplus centers to be able to have a more regular supply of materials, which also means continuously less material into the wastestream from these places. In addition, all of (wired)'s packaging, shipping materials and most of the displays are repurposed or surplus. I also offer bike messenger service to customers within the Chicago city limits and use a bike messenger for most errands and dropoffs for shipping.

CP: What is your artistic background?

MK: My background is in Industrial Design. Prior to starting my (wired) project, I worked for architecture and engineering firms, and did a little furniture and home accessory design. The shop I worked for was across the street from a scrap yard where I salvaged a lot of materials for projects. Chicago was fortunate at the time to have the Creative Reuse Center and another place called Usable Materials where a lot of artists, designers and teachers could go to find project materials. (wired) began after I made holiday gifts for friends and family from bits and pieces. I had such a good response that I put out some jewelry at my next show, sold almost everything and received a wholesale order. Ten years later... no lack of ideas or materials, just time.

CP: What are you working on now?

MK: At the moment I am preparing to go down to St. Maarten for awhile to continue working on a recycling project at the Belvedere Community Center. I started working with them in March after doing a trunk show at a nearby resort. The director was interested in starting a recycling program and was also looking for ways to fund their entrepreneurship program. We thought that we may be able to combine those two things. I returned in June and we started to develop a plan to start a reuse center there with the intent that it will become an idea incubator for the kids to work on product design projects that they can sell to support the center.

The reuse center will eventually be open to the public so that local residents, teachers, artists and community groups can come to purchase usable materials and items for projects as well as make donations. We would love for the project to become a model for other communty centers on the island and the centers can work together to keep usable materials out of the landfill.

CP: If you could ask us all to do just one thing for a greener tomorrow, what would it be?

MK: Buy (wired) from Cool Planet, of course!...

"We didn't ask her to say that"!

Please check out our line of handcrafted, one-of-a-kind reclaimed jewelry and handbag items by Melissa Kolbusz by clicking on the logo below or Melissa's photo. More products by Melissa are also available on her website wired.com.

Click on the logo above to view our featured artisan's products on Cool Planet.